A 0-Day vulnerability is in the wild that impacts all current versions of windows, Microsoft is sunsetting the Nokia brand, Samsung has a patch for your SSD, and our Kickstarter of the week!

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Windows 0-Day Exploited In Ongoing Attacks

Microsoft is warning users about a new Windows zero-day vulnerability that is being actively exploited in the wild and is primarily a risk to users on servers and workstations that open documents with embedded OLE objects. The vulnerability is currently being exploited via PowerPoint files. These specially crafted files contain a malicious OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) object. This is not the first time a vulnerability in OLE has been exploited by cybercriminals, however most previous OLE vulnerabilities have been limited to specific older versions of the Windows operating system. What makes this vulnerability dangerous is that it affects the latest fully patched versions of Windows.

User interaction is required to exploit this vulnerability,” Microsoft explained in the security advisory. “In an email attack scenario, an attacker could exploit the vulnerability by sending a specially-crafted file to the user. For this attack scenario to be successful, the user must be convinced to open the specially crafted file containing the malicious OLE object. All Microsoft Office file types as well as many other third-party file types could contain a malicious OLE object.”

The vulnerability affects all supported Windows versions, and there is currently no patch for it. Microsoft is still investigating the matter and deciding whether they will issue an out-of-band patch or wait for the next Patch Tuesday to plug the hole.

Microsoft Lumia will replace the Nokia brand | The Verge

Microsoft Lumia is the new brand name that takes the place of Nokia for the software maker. The name change follows a slow transition from Nokia.com over to Microsoft’s new mobile site, and Nokia France will be the first of many countries that adopt “Microsoft Lumia” for its Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts. Microsoft has confirmed to _The Verge _that other countries will follow the rebranding steps in the coming weeks.

Microsoft’s decision to drop the Nokia brand itself doesn’t mean that Nokia is going away fully. Nokia still exists as a separate company without its phones business, and the Finnish firm now focuses on mapping and network infrastructure. Microsoft’s choice to use Lumia as the Nokia replacement won’t come as a surprise to many. Nokia’s Windows Phone apps have been rebranded to Lumia recently, and holiday ads will be pushing Lumia instead of Nokia.

Apple Aware of iCloud Login Harvesting in China, Launches Browser Security Guide

Earlier this week, web censorship blog Great Fire suggested that hackers aligned with Chinese authorities were using man-in-the-middle attacks in order to harvest Apple ID information from Chinese users that visited Apple’s iCloud.com website.

In a newly released support document (via The Wall Street Journal), Apple has confirmed that it is aware of the “intermittent organized network attacks” on iCloud users, but says that its own servers have not been compromised.

Unfortunately, many of the victims falling prey to the fake iCloud sites are not using secure browsers that issue warnings when fake websites are visited. According to Great Fire, many Chinese users access the Internet through popular Chinese browser Qihoo, which does not let users know that a fake site is harvesting their information.

The attack works by redirecting Chinese users attempting to access iCloud.com to a fake website that resembles the iCloud website. Users that log into the fake site provide attackers with logins and passwords that can be used to access contacts, messages, photos, and documents stored within iCloud.

Though Great Fire has suggested that Chinese authorities may be involved in the attacks, a spokeswoman for China’s Foreign Ministry (via CNBC) said that Beijing was “resolutely opposed” to hacking.

Samsung Acknowledges and Fixes Bug On 840 EVO SSDs

Samsung has issued a firmware fix for a bug on its popular 840 EVO triple-level cell SSD. The bug apparently slows read performance tremendously for any data more than a month old that has not been moved around on the NAND. Samsung said in a statement that the read problems occurred on its 2.5-in 840 EVO SSDs and 840 EVO mSATA drives because of an error in the flash management software algorithm. Some users on technical blog sites, such as Overclock.net, say the problem extends beyond the EVO line. They also questioned whether the firmware upgrade was a true fix or if it just covers up the bug by moving data around the SSD.

Samsung now producing 32GB DRAM modules, 128GB to follow | Computerworld

Samsung Electronics is now mass producing its most advanced 8Gbit, DDR4 memory and 32GB registered dual in-line memory modules

Using the new 8Gb DDR4 chip, Samsung began producing the 32GB module earlier this month. The new module’s data transfer rate per pin reaches up to 2.4Gbps, which represents about a 29% performance increase over the previous 1.866Mbps bandwidth DDR3 server module.

Beyond the 32GB RDIMM modules, the new 8Gb chips will allow production of server modules with a maximum capacity of 128GB by applying 3D through silicon via (TSV) technology, which will encourage further expansion of the high-density DRAM market, the company said.

Kickstarter of the Week: Hendo Hoverboards – World’s first REAL hoverboard by Hendo

Hendo is introducing the world’s first REAL hoverboard and hover developer kit. We are putting hover technology in YOUR hands.

The post NoMokia | Tech Talk Today 79 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Sony is under attack again, but this time the hackers have taken it to the physical world. Another Android flaw is getting over hyped, Windows 9 gets a release date, the most popular open source cloud projects & more!

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Sony PlayStation Network taken down by attack

Sony Corp said on Sunday its PlayStation Network was taken down by a denial of service-style attack and the FBI was investigating the diversion of a flight carrying a top Sony executive amid reports of a claim that explosives were on board.

The company said in a posting on its PlayStation blog that no personal information of the network was accessed in the attack, which overwhelmed the system with heavy traffic.

Plane carrying Sony Online Entertainment President John Smedley was diverted on Sunday, Smedley said in a post on microblogging site Twitter.

A group called Lizard Squad sent a message through its Twitter account to American Airlines saying Smedley’s flight had explosives on board, according to a report by USA Today. The group also used Twitter to claim credit for the network attack, the newspaper said.

USA Today reported that the Dallas/Fort Worth flight to San Diego was diverted and landed safely in Phoenix.

A PlayStation spokeswoman in the United States said the diverted flight was being handled by the FBI and had no comment.

Android attack improves timing, allows data theft | Ars Technica

According to a team of researchers from the University of Michigan and the University of California at Riverside.

The attack, known as a user interface (UI) inference attack, makes use of the design of programming frameworks that share memory, allowing one application to gather information about the state of other applications. The information can be gathered without any special Android permissions or by grabbing screen pixels, according to a paper presented at the USENIX Security Conference on Friday.

The technique gives attackers the ability to infer the state of a targeted application, enabling more convincing attacks. If malware knows that the targeted user has just clicked on a “login” button, then it can throw up a dialog box asking for a username and password. If the malware can infer that a user is about to take a picture of a check or sensitive document, it can quickly take a second picture.

An attack application must be running in the background, where it can determine the foreground activity of a targeted app with 80 to 90 percent accuracy in most applications, the researchers said. The technique detects transitions in the UI state of the targeted app and then uses a signature to identify the new state.

In videos demonstrating the UI inference attack, the research group showed the malicious software stealing a username and password from the H&R Block application, copying an image of a check taken by the Chase Bank application, and stealing credit-card information from the NewEgg store.

“By design, Android allows apps to be preempted or hijacked,” Qian said in a statement. “But the thing is you have to do it at the right time so the user doesn’t notice. We do that and that’s what makes our attack unique.”

Because the attack does not focus on any specific vulnerability in the operating system, hardening the software to attack will be difficult, according to the paper.

While the researchers focused on the Android operating system, the operating-system architecture that they exploit is present on most other major OSes, including MacOS X, iOS and Windows, the paper stated.

“We believe our attack on Android is likely to be generalizable to other platforms,” the paper stated.

• Cyber security experts find 92 percent successful Gmail hack- The Inquirer

Most smartphone users download zero apps per month

Mobile apps have skyrocketed in popularity and utility since Apple introduced the iPhone App Store in the summer of 2008. Apps now represent 52% of time spent with digital media in the US, according to comScore, up from 40% in early 2013. Apple boasted 75 billion all-time App Store downloads at its developers conference in June, and followed up by declaring July the best month ever for App Store revenue, with a record number of people downloading apps.

Yet most US smartphone owners download zero apps in a typical month, according to comScore’s new mobile app report.

Only about one-third of smartphone owners download any apps in an average month, with the bulk of those downloading one to three apps. The top 7% of smartphone owners account for “nearly half of all download activity in a given month,” comScore reports.

Microsoft set to unveil Windows 9 on September 30th | The Verge

Microsoft is planning to unveil its Windows 8 successor next month at a special press event. Sources familiar with Microsoft’s plans tell The Verge that the software maker is tentatively planning its press event for September 30th to detail upcoming changes to Windows as part of a release codenamed “Threshold.” This date may change, but the Threshold version of Windows is currently in development and Microsoft plans to release a preview version of what will likely be named Windows 9 to developers on September 30th or shortly afterwards. The date follows recent reports from ZDNet that suggested Microsoft is planning to release a preview version of Windows 9 in late September or early October.

Most popular open-source cloud projects of 2014 | ZDNet

At CloudOpen, a Linux Foundation tradeshow held in conjunction with LinuxCon, the Foundation announced that an online survey of open-source cloud professionals found OpenStack to be the most popular overall project.

That wasn’t surprising. Although OpenStack is only four years old, the Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) cloud project is very popular with support from such industry giants HP, Red Hat, and VMware. What was somewhat surprising was that number two was Docker, the just-over-a-year old container technology.

Behind those two, you’ll find KVM, the x86 virtualization technology that’s recently been ported to Power; CloudStack, one of the older open-source IaaS cloud projects; and Ceph, the open-source, software-defined storage stack.

The post Sony's the Bomb | Tech Talk Today 48 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Steve Ballmer officially steps down as a board member at Microsoft, we speculate about the real motivations. Facebook Tests “Satire” Tag & are people really being fined for the Ice Bucket challenge?

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Steve Ballmer steps down as board member at Microsoft

After leaving his position as CEO of Microsoft a year ago, Steve Ballmer has still held a position as a member of the board of directors for the company. Now, he is leaving the board, explaining why in a letter to fresh Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. “I have become very busy,” Ballmer explains. “I see a combination of Clippers, civic contribution, teaching and study taking up a lot of time.” Despite his departure, the former-CEO is still invested in the company’s success, and he spent most of the letter encouraging Nadella and giving advice. Nadella shot back a supportive, equally optimistic response, promising that Microsoft will thrive in “the mobile-first, cloud-first world.”

It’s not surprising that former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer abruptly gave up his board seat some six months after leaving the top job, and the move should help cement the regime and strategy of his successor Satya Nadella, according to several industry observers.

“I think it’s a classy move by Ballmer,” said analyst Frank Scavo, managing partner of IT consulting firm Strativa. “It shows Ballmer has confidence in Nadella, allowing Nadella to move forward without worrying about what Ballmer thinks.”

Ballmer may have also been smarting from decisions Nadella has made, such as the 14 percent staff reduction last month that focused largely on workers who came aboard through Microsoft’s $7.2 billion acquisition of Nokia’s mobile phone business. That deal was driven vigorously by Ballmer, who reportedly struggled to gain buy-in on it from Microsoft’s board.

Microsoft board meetings may not have been especially fun for Ballmer anyway, according to Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group. “Once you step down as CEO like Steve did, being on the board and being reminded that you had to step down is like coming to a party after you’ve been asked to leave it.”

Some large institutional investors may be glad to see Ballmer leave the party for good, according to Wes Miller, research analyst with Directions on Microsoft. These players “would like to move beyond the era of Steve Ballmer,” he said. “They’ll view this as a checkpoint for the new Microsoft.”

Facebook Tests “Satire” Tag To Avoid Confusion On News Feed – Slashdot

“In an attempt to keep you from having to explain to your crazy relatives that despite what they read, Vice President Biden *didn’t* get a grow light delivered to the White House under a fake name, Facebook is testing a “satire” tag on news feeds. A Facebook representative issued the following statement to Ars Technica: “We are running a small test which shows the text ‘[Satire]’ in front of links to satirical articles in the related articles unit in News Feed. This is because we received feedback that people wanted a clearer way to distinguish satirical articles from others in these units.”

California Fining ‘Ice Bucket Challenge’ Participants for Wasting Water

In Los Angeles, which is living through its worst drought in generations, the Department of Water & Power and the Police Department have long been cracking down on unnecessary water usage.

At first there were simple restrictions, such as limiting the watering of landscapes, boats, aircrafts etc. But now the “Water Police” have targeted people participating in the Ice Bucket Challenge, a viral campaign meant to raise awareness for the rare neurological disorder Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

“We’re saving a lot of time since people are posting their crime directly to social media,” said Chip Masters, the president of the Department of Water and power. “One day, my entire Facebook feed was filled with these attention hungry morons pouring gallons of ice water over themselves. I couldn’t believe it.

As of Aug. 15, any person or persons who are participating in the ice bucket challenge will be fined $500, as part of the Water Conservation Act.
Within seconds, Masters saw a USC sorority post a video of the entire 50-person chapter standing on their house steps in bikinis, as they took turns pouring roughly 5 gallons of ice cubes over their heads. The video is about 20 minutes long as each sister goes on to nominate their “BFFAEAEs (Best Friends For Ever And Ever).”

The sorority was fined $500 a person for their Ice bucket challenge video. Totaling in about $25,000 in fines, roughly a third of the tuition for the University. The sorority is expected to have wasted over 250 gallons of water, which is almost enough to fill a hot tub.

22 People Who Should Have Definitely Not Taken The Ice Bucket Challenge

By now you’ve seen it EVERYWHERE. The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge has taken over the internet, spreading awareness (and raising millions) for ALS research. It’s great.

But that doesn’t mean things always go as planned.

Ignition: A Social Retro Gaming OS for the Raspberry Pi by Alex Stubbs — Kickstarter

Ignition is a Social Retro Gaming “OS” for the Pi with features such as Gaming Achievements, Gamer Profiles, Online Play, more..

The post Drop the Ballmer | Tech Talk Today 46 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

A leak reveals the specs, price, and other details about the new Moto 360 smartwatch & is Xiaomi’s new MIUI 6 OS release a iOS rip off?

Plus the market share numbers you won’t believe, and if Linux distros were superheroes, which hero would they be? We debate!

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Moto 360 Shows Up at Best Buy for $249, Outs List of Features | Droid Life

We are expecting to get official Moto 360 launch details when Motorola hosts press at a September 4 event in Chicago, but Best Buy may have gone ahead and let us in on all sorts of details early. According to a listing on Best Buy’s site for the Moto 360, we could end up paying $249.

MIUI 6 Full Review: Visually Stunning, Stunningly Simple – Xiaomi Mi 4 – MIUI Official Community

MIUI 6

I’m not sure who should be more upset. Apple, because this is such a preposterously shameless ripoff of iOS. Or Samsung, because Xiaomi is so much better at ripping off Apple than they are.

Update: Keep in mind, too, that Xiaomi VP Hugo Barra keeps insisting they don’t copy designs from Apple. Even Thom Holwerda agrees that this is just shameless.

Android, iOS gobble up even more global smartphone share | PCWorld

According to IDC, the total combined market share of Android and iOS swelled to 96.4 percent during the second quarter, up from 92.6 percent a year ago. That left just 2.5 percent of the market to Windows Phone, down from 3.4 percent in a year’s time.

Unfortunately for Microsoft’s Windows Phone, Apple’s iOS devices dominated the high end of the market, while Android—with 84.7-percent global share in smartphone operating systems—tended to dominate the low-end, sub-$200 market. That left precious little room for Windows Phone, even though recent efforts to lower the platform’s licensing costs should have helped propel it in the market.

“With many of its OEM partners focusing on the sub-$200 segments, Android has been reaping huge gains within emerging markets,” said Ramon Llamas, a research manager with IDC’s mobile phone team, in a statement. “During the second quarter, 58.6 percent of all Android smartphone shipments worldwide cost less than $200 off contract, making them very attractive compared to other devices. With the recent introduction of Android One, in which Google offers reference designs below $100 to Android OEMs, the proportion of sub-$200 volumes will climb even higher.”

If Linux Distros Were Superheroes Ubuntu Would Be Superman

If Ubuntu-based Linux distributions were comic book superheroes, who would be what and why? That’s the question I’ve been mulling over for the last half hour.

The post China's new Apple | Tech Talk Today 44 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

This week Chris and Chase release a supporters only show to the public, and update the Iraq, ISIS/ISIL story, discuss the ACLU suing Washington, the big push for Botox, and why Putin shirts are selling like crazy.

Plus we discuss our personal battles with depression in the past, and cover the weekly news.

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The post Hope & Regime Change | Unfilter 110 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

A list of the most hackable cars has been released on the eve of a highly anticipated Black Hat presentation, Mozilla developers get hacked, getting started with Linux and why a little video games can be good for kids.

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Least Secure Cars Revealed At Black Hat

Research by two security experts presenting at Black Hat this week has labeled the 2014 Jeep Cherokee, the 2015 Cadillac Escalade and the 2014 Toyota Prius as among the vehicles most vulnerable to hacking because of security holes that can be accessed through a car’s Bluetooth, telematics, or on-board phone applications. The most secure cars include the Dodge Viper, the Audi A8, and the Honda Accord, according to Researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek. Millar and Valasek will reveal the full report on Wednesday, but spoke to Dark Reading today with some preliminary data.

The two security experts didn’t physically test the vehicles in question, but instead used information about the vehicles’ automated capabilities and internal network. “We can’t say for sure we can hack the Jeep and not the Audi,” Valasek told Dark Reading. “But… the radio can always talk to the brakes” because both are on the same network. According to the “Connected Car Cybersecurity” report from ABI Research, there have been “quite a few proof of concepts” demonstrating interception of wireless signals of tire pressure monitoring systems, impairing anti-theft systems, and taking control of self-driving and remote control features through a vehicle’s internal bus, known as controller area network (CAN).

• Researchers to name the most hackable cars at Black Hat – Computerworld

Thousands of Mozilla developers’ e-mail addresses, password hashes exposed | Ars Technica

About 76,000 e-mail addresses and 4,000 password hashes were left on a publicly accessible server for about 30 days beginning June 23, according to a blog post. There is no indication the data was accessed, but Mozilla officials investigating the disclosure can’t rule out the possibility.

The code Mozilla uses for their developer login site is open source and posted on GitHub. It looks like from the code they didn’t key stretch the hash. While the salt keeps things ‘safer’ (no rainbow tables, etc), against a GPU brute-forcing attempt, the fact these are straight hashes means they are a little weak against brute-forcing.

Introduction to Linux | edX

Beginning August 1st, The Linux Foundation, in conjunction with online education giant edX, is offering a free Introduction to Linux course.

This class, first announced in early March, is available for free. That’s not bad for a class that usually runs $2,400!

This massively open online course (MOOC) is being taught by Jerry Cooperstein. Cooperstein is a nuclear astrophysicist who’s been using Linux since 1994 and teaching it for almost that long.

According to Dice, the leading career site for technology and engineering professionals, nine out of ten IT hiring managers are looking for Linux pros.

This class looks at Linux from a very high level. You’ll be able to use Linux distributions from any of the three major Linux families, including Red Hat, with Fedora or CentOS; Debian, including Ubunt or Mint; and SUSE, including openSUSE.

This course will cover the various tools and techniques commonly used by Linux programmers, system administrators and end users to do day-to-day work in Linux.

• Linux Foundation’s free online intro to Linux class opens its doors | ZDNet

Could a Little Video Game Play Be Good for Kids?

Researchers found that kids who played video games for less than one hour a day were more likely to be happy, helpful and emotionally stable than kids who never grab a controller, according to findings published online Aug. 4 in the journal Pediatrics.

More than three hours daily of gaming had the opposite effect, however. Video game junkies were more likely to be moody, unhappy with their life and apt to act out in negative ways.

To examine both the positive and negative effects of gaming, researchers assessed the video game habits and emotional growth of nearly 5,000 British boys and girls aged 10 to 15.

The post BlackHat Carmageddon | Tech Talk Today 38 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Wireless providers double down on slicing up the internet into marketing packages, and we’ll explain why we feel this is very bad for future innovation on the web.

Plus has Google just taken another major step away from G+, why BitTorrent’s new Bleep chat might fall short, and the amazing story of Popcorn Time and it’s new features.

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Sprint Will Sell a $12 Wireless Plan that Only Connects to Facebook or Twitter – Digits – WSJ

For about $12, will soon let subscribers buy a wireless plan that only connects to Facebook.

For that same price, they could choose instead to connect only with Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest—or for $10 more, enjoy unlimited use of all four. Another $5 gets them unlimited streaming of a music app of their choice.

The plan, offered under the company’s Virgin Mobile brand of prepaid service, comes as wireless carriers are experimenting with ways to make wireless Internet access more affordable for the poorest consumers by offering special deals on slices of the Web.

In the process, however, they are testing the long-held principle that all Internet traffic should be treated equally by creating strong incentives for subscribers to use already dominant services.

In June, T-Mobile US Inc. said it would allow customers unlimited use of mobile streaming music that doesn’t count against their data plans when they use services like Pandora and Spotify. Earlier this year, AT&T Inc. created a program allowing companies to foot the bill for data used by their customers on mobile apps.

Sprint said the plan—called Virgin Mobile Custom—was aimed at giving consumers more choices.

The new plan is only available at Wal-Mart and the base offering covers just 20 minutes of talk time and 20 texts. Subscribers can customize the plan by buying up to unlimited talk or text or both, and by choosing among data packages.

Ubuntu for Phones to Integrate Nokia HERE Maps

“HERE will provide a hybrid solution integrating an A-GPS and WiFi positioning system. Although Ubuntu already features GPS-based location, GPS on its own is not sufficient to support the location services that run on the OS with a rapid and efficient location positioning capability. This fully integrated solution will also be available to the many thousands of application developers currently using Ubuntu OS on their own hardware.”

Hangouts Now Works Without Google+ Account

Until now, you had to have a Google+ account to use Hangouts if you were a Google Apps user. Starting today, that requirement is gone. Anybody with a Google Apps account will now be able to start or join a meeting from their desktop or their dedicated Chromebox for Meetings device. For now, however, the requirement is still in place on mobile, but Google says that’s going away soon, too.

The only other restriction for those who want to use Hangouts without a Google+ account is that they won’t be able to use Hangout apps other than Screenshare or Chat and that they won’t be able to use Hangouts on Air to broadcast their chats to a larger audience.

BitTorrent’s new Bleep chat client doesn’t rely on any central servers to find and manage contacts. Instead, the company is using Distributed Hash Tables, also known as DHT, which are basically decentralized sets of data that can be queried by any connected client.

The company touts the absence of a central server or directory as a safeguard against government wiretapping and other kind of snooping, and it also promises better security for the actual messages. Bittorrent’s Senior Director of Product Development Farid Fadaie explained it this way on the company’s engineering blog:

“We are using secure encryption protocols such as curve25519, ed25519 , salsa20, poly1305, and others. Links between nodes are encrypted. All communication is end to end encrypted. This should be the new normal in the post-Snowden era.”

BitTorrent starts testing Bleep, its new P2P messaging platform

BitTorrent is slowly starting to take the wraps off its upcoming P2P chat initiative: The company started an invite-only pre-alpha test of a new Windows chat client dubbed “Bleep” on Wednesday, and it also revealed that it plans to make the underlying peer-to-peer technology available to other chat apps and messaging service providers as well.

• Bleep… BitTorrent Unveils Serverless & Encrypted Chat Client | TorrentFreak

Popcorn Time Adds Apple TV Support, iOS App Coming Soon | TorrentFreak

While the original app was shut down by the developers after a few weeks, the project was quickly picked up by others. This resulted in several popular forks that have gained millions of users in recent months.

Today one of the most popular Popcorn Time forks releases a highly anticipated feature. The developers inform TorrentFreak that the latest version now has Airplay support, making it possible to stream movies directly to Apple TVs and other supported devices.

Ironically, Airplay support is currently limited to the Windows release, but a Mac version is due early next week and the Linux release will follow shortly after.

The latest feature follows the addition of Chromecast support a few weeks ago.

The post The Premium Internet | Tech Talk Today 36 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

An Android flaw from 2010 allows any app to break out of the Android sandbox. But is it really a threat in practice? We’ll dig in.

The Podcast patent troll takes it on the nose, and some highlights from the Gnome development conference this week.

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Android crypto blunder exposes users to highly privileged malware | Ars Technica

This is the issue in a nutshell.

The Fake ID vulnerability stems from the failure of Android to verify the validity of cryptographic certificates that accompany each app installed on a device. The OS relies on the credentials when allocating special privileges that allow a handful of apps to bypass Android sandboxing. Under normal conditions, the sandbox prevents programs from accessing data belonging to other apps or to sensitive parts of the OS. Select apps, however, are permitted to break out of the sandbox. Adobe Flash in all but version 4.4, for instance, is permitted to act as a plugin for any other app installed on the phone, presumably to allow it to add animation and graphics support. Similarly, Google Wallet is permitted to access Near Field Communication hardware that processes payment information.

The App simply needs to claim its Adobe flash, and it gets to break out of the sandbox.

The flaw appears to have been introduced to Android through an open source component, Apache Harmony. Google turned to Harmony as an alternative means of supporting Java in the absence of a deal with Oracle to license Java directly.

Work on Harmony was discontinued in November, 2011. However, Google has continued using native Android libraries that are based on Harmony code. The vulnerability concerning certificate validation in the package installer module persisted even as the two codebases diverged.

Google’s Response to Ars

After receiving word of this vulnerability, we quickly issued a patch that was distributed to Android partners, as well as to AOSP. Google Play and Verify Apps have also been enhanced to protect users from this issue. At this time, we have scanned all applications submitted to Google Play as well as those Google has reviewed from outside of Google Play, and we have seen no evidence of attempted exploitation of this vulnerability.

The Reality of the Situation

First, a patch been sent to OEMs and AOSP, but with Android’s abysmal update situation, this is a moot point. The crux, however, lies with Google Play and Verify Apps. These have already been updated to detect this issue, and prevent applications that try to abuse this flaw from being installed. This means two things.

First, that there are no applications in Google Play that exploit this issue. If you stick to Google Play, you’re safe from this issue, period. No ifs and buts. Second, even if you install applications from outside of Google Play, you are still safe from this issue. Verify Apps is part of Play Services, and runs on every Android device from 2.3 and up. It scans every application at install and continuously during use for suspect behaviour. In this case, an application that tries to exploit this flaw will simply be blocked from installing or running.

• New Android ‘Fake ID’ flaw empowers stealthy new class of super-malware

A new Android design error discovered by Bluebox Security allows malicious apps to grab extensive control over a user’s device without asking for any special permissions at installation. The problem affects virtually all Android phones sold since 2010.

• Android ‘supermalware’ can impersonate any app- The Inquirer

The vulnerability in the Android code that allows “Fake ID” in was first noticed in the now dormant Adobe Flash integration, which had been present since 2010 and was only patched with the arrival of Android 4.4 Kitkat earlier this year. The flaw is so deeply embedded in Android that it can affect all forks of the Android Open Source Project including Amazon’s Fire OS.

• Android Fake ID Vulnerability Lets Malware Impersonate Trusted Applications, Puts All Android Users Since January 2010 At Risk – Bluebox Security

Dubbed “Fake ID,” the vulnerability allows malicious applications to impersonate specially recognized trusted applications without any user notification. This can result in a wide spectrum of consequences. For example, the vulnerability can be used by malware to escape the normal application sandbox and take one or more malicious actions: insert a Trojan horse into an application by impersonating Adobe Systems; gain access to NFC financial and payment data by impersonating Google Wallet; or take full management control of the entire device by impersonating 3LM.

• Old Apache Code At Root of Android FakeID Mess – Slashdot

Podcasting patent troll: We tried to drop lawsuit against Adam Carolla | Ars Technica

In a statement released today, Personal Audio says that Carolla, who has raised more than $450,000 from fans to fight the case, is wasting their money on an unnecessary lawsuit. The company, which is a “patent troll” with no business other than lawsuits, has said Carolla just doesn’t care since his fans are paying his lawyers’ bills.

Adam Carolla’s assertions that we would destroy podcasting were ludicrous on their face,” said Personal Audio CEO Brad Liddle. “But it generated sympathy from fans and ratings for his show.

According to Personal Audio, they’ve lost interest in suing podcasters because the podcasters—even one of Adam Carolla’s size—just don’t make enough money for it to care.

“[Personal Audio] was under the impression that Carolla, the self-proclaimed largest podcaster in the world, as well as certain other podcasters, were making significant money from infringing Personal Audio’s patents,” stated the company. “After the parties completed discovery, however, it became clear this was not the case.”

Personal Audio also says it has a patent covering playlists.

Personal Audio has already dropped its lawsuits against two other podcasting defendants from the case (Togi Net and How Stuff Works) apparently without getting paid anything.

The patent company is charging ahead with its patent case against the big three television networks, CBS, NBC, and ABC. Personal Audio is trying to wring a royalty from those companies for releasing video “episodic content” over the Internet.

In response, Carolla sent Ars a statement saying he’ll continue to pursue counterclaims against Personal Audio, seeking to invalidate the patent “so that Personal Audio cannot sue other podcasters for infringement of US Patent 8,112,504.” Lotzi (Carolla’s company) has already “incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees and expenses to defend itself” against the Personal Audio patents.

GUADEC 2014, Day Four: Hardware, New IDE for GNOME | Fedora Magazine

The fourth day of GUADEC was devoted to hardware and its interaction with desktop. The first talk was “Hardware Integration, The GNOME Way” by Bastien Nocera who has been a contributor to GNOME and Fedora for many years.

Performance Testing on Actual Hardware

Owen Taylor talked on continuous integration performance testing on actual hardware. According to Owen, continuous performance testing is very important. It helps find performance regressions more easily because the delta between the code tested last time and the code tested now is much smaller, thus there are much fewer commits to investigate.

He noted that desktop performance testing in VMs is not very useful which is why he has several physical machines that are connected to a controller which downloads new builds of GNOME Continuous and installs them on the connected machines. The testing can be controlled by GNOME Hardware Testing app Owen has created. And what is tested?

Here are currently used metrics:

• time from boot to desktop
• time redraw entire empty desktop
• time to show overview
• time to redraw overview with 5 windows
• time to show application picker
• time to draw frame from test application, time to start gedit.

Tests are scripted right in the shell (javascript) and events logged with timestamp. The results are uploaded to perf.gnome.org. In the future, he’d like to have results in the graph linked to particular commits (tests are triggered after very commit), have more metrics (covering also features in apps), assemble more machines and various kinds of them (laptops, ARM devices,…).

Builder: a new IDE for GNOME

The last talk of the day was “Builder, a new IDE for GNOME” by Christian Hergert. Christian started the talk by clearly stating what Builder is not intended to be: a generic IDE (use Eclipse, Anjuta, MonoDevelop,… instead). And it most likely won’t support plugins. Builder should be an IDE specializing on GNOME development.

Here are some characteristics of Builder:

• components are broken into services and services are contained in sub-processes,
• uses basic autotools management,
• source editor uses GtkSourceView,
• has code highlighting, auto-completation,
• cross-reference, change tracking,
• snippets,
• auto-formatting,
• distraction free mode.
• Vim/Emacs integration may be possible.
• The UI designer will use Glade and integrate GTK+ Inspector.
• Builder will also contain resource manager, simulator (something similar to Boxes, using OSTree), debugger, profiler, source control.

After naming all Builder’s characteristics Christian demoed a prototype.

For Later Reading Pick:

• AnandTech | The NVIDIA SHIELD Tablet Review

Feedback:

• More information on the “Trans Pacific Partnership” from an Avid Australian listener – Magentium

Hey Guys at Jupiter Broadcasting. Just wanted to put a bit more info to you that I saw on Tech Talk Today about the Copyright Act that’s being brought into Australia. Someone mentioned that “Netflix could come in” and make some serious mone. Netflix would be awesome if our Internet Infrastructure wasnt at a maximum of 12Mbps speeds (If you are lucky).

On a good day (and ive got some of the best net here) i get around 8mbps down. Netflix wouldn’t be viable because it wouldnt be available to even 30% of the country. We have Foxtel (like SKY / Cable) which is Premium Paid TV and costs a FORTUNE. It’s still not viable.

In regards to the Copyrighting, the Government also has it all wrong. The number one reason that I am always told by people I know as to why they pirate TV shows, movies and Games, is that the pricing of this stuff over here is unbelievable. For instance, the box set of Star Trek : The Next Generation will cost you over US$250 if you convert the costs, depending if its on special / discount or not.

Either way, you guys were spot on. Keep up the great work, Love the show, and a big shoutout from Australia! CRICKEY! ( we dont actually say that, so don’t get fooled by the stereotype). And no I don’t have a pet Kangeroo (not anymore).

The post Android's Leaky Sandbox | Tech Talk Today 35 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Microsoft is in hot water with authorities in China and it could be worse than your being told. Plus Mozilla has a new CEO & then we cover a series of tech stories from down under that you’ve just got to hear!

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China Investigates Microsoft – WSJ

Two people familiar with the inquiry said Chinese corporate regulatory officials made surprise visits to Microsoft’s offices in four Chinese cities.

According to Reuters and the South China Morning Post, the company is being investigated by the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, which raided Microsoft offices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chengdu on Monday.

China’s State Administration for Industry and Commerce acts as the nation’s corporate registry and has some marketing and antitrust responsibilities. It couldn’t be reached for comment late Monday.

AIC officials sometimes pay visits to industries under official scrutiny that don’t result in formal probes.

Microsoft had been in the Chinese government’s cross hairs before this week. China’s powerful state-run television broadcaster ran a report in June that questioned the security of the company’s new Windows 8 computer operating system.

The broadcast quoted Chinese experts who argued that Microsoft cooperated with the U.S. government to carry out cyberspying.

Other U.S. companies have also been under scrutiny in the country. China’s state broadcaster also raised questions about the security of the iPhone in July, allegations that Apple Inc.

In late May, the Chinese authorities banned government institutions from using Windows 8

• Microsoft targeted in apparent Chinese antitrust probe | Reuters
• Microsoft’s Chinese burn riddle: Antitrust g-men swoop on offices • The Register
• Chinese regulators drop in on Microsoft | ZDNet
• Microsoft Faces Mysterious Inquiry by Chinese Government | Paul Thurrotts WinInfo content from Windows IT Pro

Chris Beard Named CEO of Mozilla

Chris Beard has been appointed CEO of Mozilla Corp. The Mozilla board has reviewed many internal and external candidates — and no one we met was a better fit.

Chris first joined Mozilla in 2004, just before we shipped Firefox 1.0 – and he’s been deeply involved in every aspect of Mozilla ever since. During his many years here, he at various times has had responsibility for almost every part of the business, including product, marketing, innovation, communications, community and user engagement.

Leaked discussion paper reveals Australian online piracy crackdown in full swing

The federal government is proposing that internet service providers (ISPs), such as Telstra, Optus and iiNet, take measures to discourage or reduce online copyright infringement, according to a leaked copy of its discussion paper.

According to the document, first obtained by news website Crikey, the government also wants to give itself the power to prescribe specific measures that would see internet providers discourage online copyright infringement. This is in the cases where the industry does not develop effective schemes or commercial arrangements.

It is also proposing that universities be “captured” by the safe harbour scheme that currently governs internet service providers. This stipulates financial damages can be levied against carriage service providers who breach four categories, including providing connections to copyright material and referring users to an online location where it exists via a link.

In the document, signed by Attorney-General George Brandis and Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the government cited its unratified trade obligations with the US – known as the** “Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement”** – to pursue its reforms.

It essentially overrules a decision by the High Court in 2012, which found that internet service providers could not be found liable for authorising an act by a subscriber that infringes copyright.

Although the discussion paper hasn’t been released yet, a speedy response from industry and the public is expected, with submissions closing on August 25.

Aussie hackers get Doom working on an ATM- The Inquirer

HACKERS IN AUSTRALIA have succeeded in running classic first person shooter game Doom on a bank cash machine.

The ATM, which runs Windows XP Embedded, can be controlled using the device’s buttons, with the game appearing on the screen in place of the message telling you the size of your overdraft.

At the moment, weapons selection is done through the arrow buttons to the side of the screen, and the group already has plans to get the number keys up and running.

• Playing Doom on an ATM – YouTube

Close Encounters Of The Radio Kind? Mystery Bursts Baffle Astronomers : NPR

Back in 2007, astronomers detected an incredibly brief, incredibly strong radio wave burst in Australia. And now, on the opposite side of the world, astronomers have detected a second blast of similar proportions. Meaning that A) the first one wasn’t a fluke, and B) we have absolutely no idea what’s causing them.

This second ultrafast flash of radio waves was discovered by the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, which had been putting out its feelers in hopes of discovering neutron stars. Instead, it got the second instance of so-called fast radio bursts (FRBs), which finally allowed astronomers to rule out cosmic noise and formally report them. Because unlike the radio signals we usually detect, these radio waves “show every sign of having come from far outside our galaxy.”

• Arecibo captures its first ‘fast radio burst’ | Cornell Chronicle
• No One Knows What’s Causing These Mysterious Radio Bursts From Space

Emails:

Stephen writes:

IBM Typerwriter

Yes, I remember that IBM typewriter. That typewriter was so popular that they were often stolen from offices. Some police forces had special teams to investigate thefts.

Sebastian writes:

USB flux capacitor

Hey Chris I saw this on twitter and it just lit a light in my soul, remembering the good old day
Flux Capacitor charger turns any ride into a DeLorean time machine

FauxShow Awards show – How do you watch JB? Send a pic, your IRC Nick, and anything you’d like to add to angela@jupiterbroadcasting.com

The post China Pays Microsoft a Visit | Tech Talk Today 34 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Amazon’s success with EC2 and S3 is making them bleed money, as investors start to get nervous we’ll debate if the cloud’s price race to the bottom can lead to anything but awful.

Linus tells it like it is, we bust some Android FUD, and more!

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Amazon apparently set to launch Square-competitor in August as it develops biometric payment solutions

Amazon could be preparing to launch its own mobile credit card reading hardware in the coming weeks, according to internal Staples documents hinting at such a launch that we’ve obtained. According to the documents, Staples stores will prepare next month to stock a new product called the “Amazon Card Reader” alongside existing card readers from Square, PayPal, and Staples’ own in-house brand. The small hardware, which will likely connect to smartphones to process payments, will cost $9.99, according to the Staples internal sales systems…

An exact launch date for the product is unconfirmed, but Staples has asked its stores to wait until Tuesday, August 12th to put up new signage related to the Amazon Card Reader, so it’s possible that the release is scheduled for that week.

• Amazon may be going after Square with a credit card reader of its own | The Verge

Amazon’s Cloud Is Growing So Fast It’s Scaring Shareholders

Yesterday Amazon said that while its cloud business grew by 90 percent last year, it was significantly less profitable. Amazon’s AWS cloud business makes up the majority of a balance sheet item it labels as “other” (along with its credit card and advertising revenue) and that revenue from that line of business grew by 38 percent. Last quarter, revenue grew by 60 percent. In other words, Amazon is piling on customers faster than it’s adding dollars to its bottom line.

The company’s chief financial officer, Tom Szkutak, blamed the drop on “substantial” price reductions the company has made to products such as its core EC2, storage and database services. “They ranged from 28 percent to 51 percent depending on the service,” he said on a conference call with analysts.

The thing is that even as Amazon’s business matures to the size of a company like VMware, its worrying to investors to see profitability slipping. That’s pretty much the meta-narrative of Amazon as a whole, though, which says it could lose as much as $810 million in the current quarter. The company is taking losses to invest in the future, and Amazon’s 10 percent stock drop today shows that some investors are uncomfortable with that.

Amazon.com Inc. missed analysts’ estimates for a second straight quarter, sending the shares tumbling 11 percent.

Trend Micro backs off Google Play malware claims

In a recent press release, Trend Micro made a fairly bold claim about malware running rampant in the Google Play Store. The release, dated July 15, 2014, began as follows:

Google Play populated with fake apps, with more than half carrying malware

Potentially evil doppelgangers for the most popular apps are inundating the Google Play store, with many carrying malware, according to a new blog post and report by Trend Micro, a global developer of cyber security solutions.

In the report more than 77 percent of the top 50 apps on the Google Play store have repackaged or fake apps associated with them.

It turns out that Trend Micro is guilty of a little over-eager language that obfuscated the nature of some of these threats. While there are indeed fake versions of many popular Android apps available for download, Trend failed to mention in their initial promotion for the report that the apps in question were posted outside the Play Store, and had to be installed manually in what’s commonly known as a side-load. This requires users to download the app in a browser, ignore a standard security warning about APK files, and disable a security option in Android’s main settings menu.

• Trend Micro caught lying about Android security

Linus Torvalds: “GCC 4.9.0 Seems To Be Terminally Broken” – Slashdot

A critique from Linus Torvalds of GCC 4.9.0. after a random panic was discovered in a load balance function in Linux 3.16-rc6. in an email to the Linux kernel mailing list outlining two separate but possibly related bugs, Linus describes the compiler as “terminally broken,” and worse (“pure and utter sh*t,” only with no asterisk).

• A slice:

“Lookie here, your compiler does some absolutely insane things with the spilling, including spilling a *constant. For chrissake, that compiler shouldn’t have been allowed to graduate from kindergarten. We’re talking “sloth that was dropped on the head as a baby” level retardation levels here …. Anyway, this is not a kernel bug. This is your compiler creating completely broken code. We may need to add a warning to make sure nobody compiles with gcc-4.9.0, and the Debian people should probably downgrate their shiny new compiler.”*

The post Cloud Gateway Drug | Tech Talk Today 33 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We debunk the Microsoft convergence story surging through the press, Apple tries to debunk iOS backdoor accusations, the UK government chooses ODF & Firefox just made video on the web easy!

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Apple Addresses iOS ‘Backdoor’ Concerns by Outlining Legitimate Uses for Targeted Services

Earlier this week, forensic expert Jonathan Zdziarski attracted attention for his disclosures of what appeared to be “backdoors” in iOS that could allow for covert data collection of users’ information from their devices. While Apple issued a statement denying that anything nefarious was involved, the company has now posted a new support document (via Cabel Sasser) offering a limited description of the three services highlighted in Zdziarski’s talk.

Each of these diagnostic capabilities requires the user to have unlocked their device and agreed to trust another computer. Any data transmitted between the iOS device and trusted computer is encrypted with keys not shared with Apple. For users who have enabled iTunes Wi-Fi Sync on a trusted computer, these services may also be accessed wirelessly by that computer.

The three processes include:

• com.apple.mobile.pcapd: Diagnostic packet capture to a trusted computer, used for diagnosing app issues and enterprise VPN connection problems.

• com.apple.mobile.file_relay: Used on internal devices and can be accessed (with user permission) by AppleCare for diagnostic purposes on the user’s device.

• com.apple.mobile.house_arrest: Used by iTunes for document transfer and by Xcode during app development and testing.

Apple Confirms “Back Doors”; Downplays Their Severity | Jonathan Zdziarski’s Domain

Apple is being completely misleading by claiming that file relay is only for copying diagnostic data. If, by diagnostic data, you mean the user’s complete photo album, their SMS, Notes, Address Book, GeoLocation data, screenshots of the last thing they were looking at, and a ton of other personal data — then sure… but this data is far too personal in nature to ever be needed for diagnostics. In fact, diagnostics is almost the complete opposite of this kind of data. And once again, the user is never prompted to give their permission to dump all of this data, or notified in any way on-screen. Apple insists AppleCare gets your consent, but this must be a verbal consent, as it is certainly not a technological consent. What’s more, if this service really were just for diagnostic use, you’d think that it would respect backup encryption, so that everything coming off the phone is encrypted with the user’s backup password.

I give Apple credit for acknowledging these services, and at least trying to give an answer to people who want to know why these services are there – prior to this, there was no documentation about file relay whatsoever, or its 44 data services to copy off personal data. They appear to be misleading about its capabilities, however, in downplaying them, and this concerns me. I wonder if the higher ups at Apple really are aware of how much non-diagnostic personal information it copies out, wirelessly, bypassing backup encryption. All the while that Apple is downplaying it, I suspect they’ll also quietly fix many of the issues I’ve raised in future versions. At least I hope so. It would be wildly irresponsible for Apple not to address these issues, especially now that the public knows about them.

• iOS: About diagnostic capabilities

UK government officially adopts Open Document Format • The Register

The United Kingdom government has formally adopted the open document format (ODF) as the standard format for government documents.

The announcement says PDF/A or HTML are now the standard “for viewing government” while ODF is now expected “for sharing or collaborating on government documents.”

BBC News – Windows development set to be ‘unified’ by Microsoft

Chief executive Satya Nadella discussed the effort while briefing analysts following Tuesday’s earnings update.

“We will streamline the next version of Windows from three operating systems into one single converged operating system for screens of all sizes,” he said.

It does bring Microsoft closer to another OS developer, Canonical, which has promoted the idea of its Ubuntu system powering both phones and desktops. Canonical previously highlighted that one benefit of this strategy was that a handset could double up as a low-power desktop PC if it was plugged into a monitor and connected to a mouse.

What ‘one Windows’ really means (and doesn’t)

Later in the call, Nadella attempted to clarify his remarks, but not in time to stop the breathless headlines.

1. A single team developing all Windows variants. This team has been in place since July 2013 when Microsoft created the unified Operating System Group under Terry Myerson. This team works on the Windows Phone OS, Windows Embedded, Windows (for PCs and tablets) and the Xbox One operating systems.

2. A single “core.” Windows Phone, Windows 8, Windows RT and Windows Server are all built on top of a common “core,” known as the NT core. Because of Microsoft’s layered architectural approach, each OS builds on top of this core using different pieces that make sense for the form factor/hardware on which it runs.

3. A unified Store and commerce model across all platforms. Microsoft has taken steps toward unifying its Windows Phone Store and Windows Store over the past year. But it still has a ways to go to reach the holy grail: A single store that spans all platforms. The next major versions of Windows Phone and Windows (both codenamed Threshold) may be where a single Store debuts. I am not sure when Xbox apps will be added to that Store.

4. A unified developer platform. Microsoft execs have been promising for years that one day, developers will be able to write once and run on any Windows variant. To get there, Microsoft is working to unify, as much as possible, the core set of application programming interfaces (APIs) and the developer tooling for building apps for Windows Phone, Windows and the Xbox operating system.

Here’s what “one Windows” doesn’t mean: There will not be one Windows SKU. Or even two. There will continue to be multiple versions of Windows.

*Nadella stated this quite plainly on the earnings call: *

“Our SKU strategy will remain by segment,” he said. “We will have multiple SKUs for enterprises, we will have for OEM, we will have for end-users…. We will be disclosing and talking about our SKUs as we get further along.”

Firefox 33 Integrates Cisco’s OpenH264

As promised, version 33 of the Firefox browser will fetch the OpenH264 module from Cisco, which enables Firefox to decode and encode H.264 video, for both the <video> tag and WebRTC, which has a codec war on this matter. The module won’t be a traditional NPAPI plugin, but a so-called Gecko Media Plugin (GMP), Mozilla’s answer to the disliked Pepper API. Firefox had no cross-platform support for H.264 before.

The post Backdoor Convergence | Tech Talk Today 32 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Are you excited about Smart Watches? Or does the current crop fall to far below expectations to be a serious item? Plus a look at how hackers remotely owned a Tesla, and the broader ramifications as computer systems are further integrated into our cars.

Plus the interesting secret buried in Google’s quarterly results & more!

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Tesla Model S hack reportedly controls locks, horn, headlights while in motion | Ars Technica

The hacks were carried out at the Syscan 360 security conference in Beijing, an article published by Bloomberg News reported. The report cited a brief post on Chinese social media site Weibo from a representative of China-based Qihoo 360 Technology Co., which said the experiment was carried out by members of the company’s information technology department.

Tesla Motors officials vowed to investigate reports that its Model S sedan is susceptible to hacks that can remotely control the car’s locks, horn, headlights, and skylight while the car is in motion, according to a published report.

Google beats Q2 2014 revenue estimates with $15.96 billion, misses on EPS | Ars Technica

Google announced its earnings for Q2 2014 today. The company reported $15.96 billion in revenue, a 22 percent increase over last quarter, and earnings of $6.08 per share. This is a mixed bag compared to what Wall Street was expecting, which was a net revenue of about $15.62 billion and earnings of $6.25 a share.

Selling hardware and apps on the Play Store now makes up 10 percent of Google’s revenues, up 53 percent over last year for 1.60 billion in revenue.

• Google reports strong revenue growth but misses profit expectations, ad rates still falling

CPC was down 7 percent in the quarter, but for network sites it was down almost twice as much at 13 percent. The growth of mobile usage has been a big part of this decline, since mobile ads tend to cost less.

Continued erosion of the CPC number (down 2% Q2Q, 6% y/y) so for those who haven’t been following this like I have here are the last fourteen quarters:

Paid Clicks Cost Per Click Paid Distribution
Q-2-Q Y-A-Q Q-2-Q Y-A-Q In $M
2011Q1 18 4 8 -1 337
2011Q2 18 -2 6 12 355
2011Q3 13 28 -5 5 383
2011Q4 17 34 -8 -8 442
2012Q1 7 39 -6 -12 468
2012Q2 1 42 1 -16 507
2012Q3 6 33 -3 -15 556
2012Q4 9 24 -2 -6 634
2013Q1 3 20 -4 -4 680
2013Q2 4 23 -2 -6 706
2013Q3 8 26 -4 -8 755
2013Q4 13 31 -2 -11 824
2014Q1 1 26 0 -9 845
2014Q2 2 25 -2 -6 893

Cost per click is the money that Google gets per click, it keeps going down suggesting to me that the “value” of this advertising is going down.

• Not slowing down at all, Google spent $2.65B on data centers in Q2 — Tech News and Analysis

Google’s quarterly infrastructure spending has been skyrocketing for several quarters now, and the past three months were no exception. Google spent nearly $2.65 billion on data centers during the second quarter — more than $1 billion over last year’s second quarter and more than triple what it spent two years ago.

Does Anyone Even Want a Smartwatch?

Fewer than half of the respondents to a recent Accenture survey said they would consider buying a smartwatch, and even the most optimistic experts predict only 20 million smartwatch sales this year, a pittance compared with phone and tablet sales.

To understand the smartwatch hype, it helps to know that the consumer-tech world is going through an identity crisis. Smartphones and their affiliated apps have powered Silicon Valley’s profit engines for years, but growth in the phone market is slowing as more people make do with the devices they already have. (Research firm IDC expects smartphone growth to fall to single digits by 2018.)

Since at the moment smartwatches need to be tethered to your phone’s data connection in order to work properly, they actually don’t allow you to streamline at all. And while it was convenient not to have to reach into my pocket every time I got a Facebook message, Twitter reply, or email, the constant buzzing raised my stress level considerably. Then there’s the matter of having a $300 gadget strapped to my wrist, which creates anxiety of its own.

Android Wear Review: Putting the Smartphone on Your Wrist – YouTube

WSJ Personal Tech columnist Joanna Stern reviews the first truly “smart” watches.

The post Not So Smart Watches | Tech Talk Today 30 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

iOS security researchers have found what appear to be backdoors in current versions of iOS, Edward Snowden plans to build new privacy tools, Google strong arms Samsung to drop Tizen, and a new Nvidia Tablet could be landing as soon as tomorrow.

Plus a new gadget to extend your wifi, Android and Linux apps running together, and more!

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Edward Snowden Plans to Work on Privacy Tech

NSA leaker Edward Snowden says he plans to work on technology to preserve personal data privacy and called on programmers to join his efforts.

Speaking via a Google Hangout at the Hackers on Planet Earth Conference in New York

But today he hinted, without providing any further details, that he’s going to be doing some of that work himself. He also wants like-minded hackers to work with him in some capacity.

Forensic Expert Questions Covert ‘Backdoor’ Services Included in iOS by Apple – Mac Rumors

As part of a recent Hackers On Planet Earth (HOPE/X) conference presentation, forensic scientist and iPhone jailbreak expert Jonathan Zdziarski detailed several backdoor security mechanisms that are secretly included in iOS by Apple.

Jonathan confirms that iOS is reasonably secure from attack by a malicious hacker, but notes that the mobile OS includes several forensic services and noticeable design omissions that make the OS vulnerable to snooping by forensic tools.

These services, such as “lockdownd,” “pcapd” and “mobile.file_relay,” can bypass encrypted backups to obtain data and can be utilized via USB, Wi-Fi and possibly cellular.

I am not suggesting some grand conspiracy; there are, however, some services running in iOS that shouldn’t be there, that were intentionally added by Apple as part of the firmware, and that bypass backup encryption while copying more of your personal data than ever should come off the phone for the average consumer.

Consumers who want to limit access to these backdoor services are advised by Jonathan to enable a complex passcode in iOS and use the enterprise Apple Configurator application to set Mobile Device Management (MDM) restrictions and enable Pair locking which will delete all pairing records. This solution will block third-party forensic software, but won’t protect the device contents if it is sent to Apple for analysis.

Google and Samsung’s relationship continues to worsen, this time over wearables

Samsung currently sells three smartwatches that run Tizen, including the Gear 2, Gear Neo, and Gear Fit. The company only offers one Android Wear-based smartwatch in the Gear Live. Google wants Samsung to focus its efforts more on Android Wear than Tizen

According to a new report out of The Information, the already tense relationship between Samsung and Google has begun to worsen thanks to both of their own lines of wearables. The report claims that Google CEO Larry Page and Samsung Vice Chairman Jay Y. Lee took part in an a “tense” private meeting at the Allen & Co. conference last week in Sun Valley. The meeting reportedly centered around Page being frustrated that Samsung was investing more in its smartwatches running Tizen than the ones running Android Wear.

• Smartwatches Drive New Wedge Between Samsung, Google – The Information

Report: Nvidia Shield Tablet ships July 29 in the US; $299 for 16GB Wi-Fi-only, $399 for 32GB with LTE, $59 for separate controller

On July 22nd NVIDIA will announce its own device, called SHIELD Tablet. It will be accompanied by wireless controller designed specifically for NVIDIA SHIELD family, meaning you will be able to control either SHIELD tablet or SHIELD console.

SHIELD tablet is 8 inch device with 1920×1200 resolution. It has 2GB RAM, Tegra K1 SoC with 192 CUDA cores, QuadCore 2.2 GHz A15 CPU. Tablet has dual speakers and 5 MPIX ‘selfie’ camera.

MicroXwin Creators Have A PC That Runs Debian & Android Together

The company behind MicroXwin, a kernel-based X Windows implementation that claims to be the smallest and fastest X implementation, has come up with a unified Linux distribution that runs Android and Debian/Ubuntu applications simultaneously.

• This demo is running on a RK3066 dual core set top box. Some features of this implementation that your readers may be interested in knowing:

1. Both Android and Debian apps run at native speeds. Debian apps don’t depend on Android unlike other implementation of Debian on Android which are based on VNC running on Android.

2. We did not change Android to implement this (other than start-up scripts). This means we have full compatibility with all Android applications.

3. MicroXwin provides the X-Wndows framework and it is much faster as seen running on ARM based Raspberry Pi

Is Kindle Unlimited worth it? – The Washington Post

Kindle Unlimited is $9.99 per month. So you’ll be paying Amazon, whose chief executive Jeffrey Bezos owns The Washington Post, around $120 per year for the unfettered e-book access. If you’re habitually spending money on more than one book per month, then it’s a service to think about. It has its perks for big book buyers — namely that don’t have to worry about spending money on a book you end up hating.

But, chances are, you aren’t reading more than one book per month. In January, the Pew Internet and American Life Project asked how many books the typical American had read in the past year.

The answer? Five.

Linksys Launches New Wi-Fi Network Range Extenders

On Thursday, Linksys introduced three new additions to its family of wireless networking products: the Linksys AC1200 MAX Wi-Fi Range Extender (RE6500), the Linksys N600 PRO Wi-Fi Range Extender (RE4000W) and the Linksys N300 Wi-Fi Range Extender (RE3000W). Their prices are quite reasonable, costing $99.99 for the RE6500, $79.99 for the RE3000W and $59.99 for the RE4000W.

Prices Range from $59.99 – $99.99 USD.

The new Linksys AC1200 Max Wi-Fi Range Extender dishes out coverage of up to 10,000 square feet.

This range extender also includes four Gigabit ports for connecting wired devices like consoles, smart TVs and Blu-ray players. There is even an audio jack on the back, allowing users to plug in a stereo system or audio speakers to wirelessly stream music from a computer or smart device.

The post iOS Backdoor | Tech Talk Today 29 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Satya Nadella makes his first big move as Microsoft’s CEO and announces their year long plan to cut 18,000 jobs. Netflix takes the first for net neutrality straight to the FCC, Google starts to embrace Bitcoin, and a classic game getting a new life.

Plus why we might see more mobile spectrum soon, and more!

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Microsoft Will Cut up to 18,000 Jobs | Re/code

Microsoft on Thursday announced it plans to cut up to 18,000 jobs this year–its deepest-ever cuts–as the company looked to digest its Nokia acquisition and reposition itself for the future.

The company is “moving now” on 13,000 of the job cuts, with the vast majority of the overall cuts coming in the next six months and fully implemented over the next 12 months.

Some 12,500 of the cuts are coming from the Nokia Devices and Services unit–roughly half that unit’s workforce.

• Starting to Evolve Our Organization and Culture

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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella wrote:

“The first step to building the right organization for our ambitions is to realign our workforce,” Nadella said in a note to employees Thursday. “It’s important to note that while we are eliminating roles in some areas, we are adding roles in certain other strategic areas. My promise to you is that we will go through this process in the most thoughtful and transparent way possible.”

• Microsoft announces massive layoffs, kills Nokia X phones

Not unsurprisingly, Nadella specifically announced the end of the Nokia X Android endeavour.

In addition, we plan to shift select Nokia X product designs to become Lumia products running Windows. This builds on our success in the affordable smartphone space and aligns with our focus on Windows Universal Apps.

Microsoft stock hits decade high ahead of layoffs – Neowin

• MSFT: 44.08 +1.63 (+3.84%) : Microsoft Corporation – Yahoo! Finance
• Microsoft Corporation: NASDAQ:MSFT quotes & news – Google Finance

Sprint, T-Mobile Look to Raise $10 Billion for Spectrum Auction – WSJ

The Federal Communications Commission is seeking to buy airwaves used by television broadcasters in a reverse auction, and then resell them to wireless carriers in a forward auction. It is a complicated process and the first time such an idea has been tried, the FCC said.

Sprint and T-Mobile are working on a plan to raise roughly $10 billion to spend in an auction of wireless airwaves, people familiar with the matter said.

If Sprint and T-Mobile jointly spend $10 billion as currently envisioned, it would exceed the $9 billion outlay AT&T Inc. has earmarked for the auction.

The companies, which have been discussing a possible merger since last year, are planning to form a joint venture that will bid in a 2015 auction of airwaves held by television broadcasters, the people said.

The funds are part of a roughly $45 billion financing package being put together by SoftBank to finance Sprint’s acquisition of T-Mobile, the people said. SoftBank acquired Sprint last year for $22 billion.

T-Mobile would oversee the venture, a concession from Sprint’s Chairman during the merger talks, people familiar with the matter said.

An announcement of the merger could come this summer, people familiar with the matter said.

Google Search Integrates Bitcoin Price Calculator

The news comes roughly one month after Google Finance partnered with Coinbase to launch a bitcoin price tracker that enabled BTC-to-fiat price conversions across a wide range of global currencies.

A representative from Google confirmed the update to CoinDesk, noting that the tool works on Google Search’s smartphone app as well.

How it works

Google search engine users can now type in basic queries such as “bitcoin price” or “price of BTC” in order to instantly access the tool.

The update also handles more complex queries including “price of 3 bitcoin” or “5 BTC”, and responds by showing the current price of bitcoin along with a chart illustrating the currency’s history dating back before 2011.

Investors should note, however, that per Google’s disclaimer policies, the resulting search may not reflect real-time value.

Netflix to FCC: reclassify Comcast and Verizon so they can’t choke the internet

Netflix came out swinging in its submission to the FCC over proposed internet “fast lanes,” arguing Wednesday that this would be a bad idea and that the agency should instead focus on forcing broadband providers to deliver the speeds they promise to their customers.

In its 28-page filing, which coincides with the close of an initial public comment period, Netflix singled out Comcast and Verizon for degrading its movie streams to “nearly VHS quality” and for holding subscribers ransom in a battle over who should pay for upgrades to internet infrastructure.

The company also took aim at the FCC’s “fast lane” proposal, arguing that it creates a perverse incentive for the ISPs to create congestion so that they can then turn around and demand money for traffic to pass through. Arguing that “no rule is better than a bad rule,”

Project AM2R – “Another Metroid 2 Remake”: AM2R runs on Linux!

The developer recently transitioned to Game Maker Studio. In the process, many features had to be redone from scratch, so Linux support was written in too. Early builds show very good promise, and an offical build should be avaiable soon.

The post The Great Microsoft Purge | Tech Talk Today 28 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Former mortal enemies Apple and IBM team up to push iOS into the enterprise, Google+ drops their real name restriction, but is it too late?

Plus a big boost for Linux games, and the Japanese woman who was arrested for 3D printing her lady parts.

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Apple and IBM Team Up For Major Enterprise Mobility Partnership

IBM will begin selling iOS devices to its corporate customers and will also create more than 100 industry-specific native apps that are built from the ground up for the iPhone and the iPad. IBM will provide cloud services optimized for iOS as well, with capabilities like device management, security, analytics, and mobile integration.

According to Apple CEO Tim Cook, Apple began speaking with IBM a couple of years ago about possible partnerships, and the enterprise arena is where the two companies felt they could come together. “It takes the best of Apple and the best of IBM and it puts those together,” he said. “There’s no overlap, no competition, they’re totally complementary, and more than anything, it focuses on the enterprise customer.”

IBM’s first apps, tailored specifically to various industries like retail, healthcare, banking, travel, transportation, and more, will be coming this fall, with additional apps following in 2015. The company also has plans to roll out its MobileFirst Platform for iOS, with benefits like analytics, cloud storage, fleet-scale device management, a private app catalog, and data and transaction security services.

a new apple pic.twitter.com/GMA8hO8SqH

— darth (@darth) July 15, 2014

• Apple – Press Info – Apple and IBM Forge Global Partnership to Transform Enterprise Mobility

Google+ rescinds real-name mandate

In an anonymously written Google+ post, the company explained the reversal saying that while the former policy “helped create a community made up of real people,” it also reduced the participation of people who were not comfortable using their real names on the social network. As Google tied Google+ deeper into many of its services, including YouTube comments and its user accounts, the policy became an increasingly divisive issue.

At the time of Google+’s launch, Chief Executive Eric Schmidt supported the move by telling CNBC, “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

Vic Gundotra, the former Google+ chief, staunchly defended the social network but he left the company earlier this year. At the time of Google+’s launch, he likened the restriction to a restaurant that “doesn’t allow people who aren’t wearing shirts to enter.”

Unity Looking To Expand Linux Game Pad Support In Unity 5

Unity Linux developer Levi Bard has reached out to ask the community for help in gathering a comprehensive list of game pad mappings.

Unity 5 will be supporting SDL style mappings, which should make it easier for developers to make use of existing work that’s out there in the community. It will also be supporting SDL_GAMECONTROLLERCONFIG, which amongst other things is used by Steam Big Picture mode to communicate its game pad bindings to games.

3D-printed cadavers revolutionise anatomical education – CNET

The kit consists of all the major body parts required to learn the anatomy of the limbs, chest, abdomen, head and neck — all without containing any actual human body parts.

The 3D Printed Anatomy Series is created from real humans. First, the team performed scans, either X-ray CT scans or surface scans. These scans are then used to create a printable 3D model of the body parts, which are then sent to a high-resolution 3D printer and printed either in full colour in a plaster-like powder or plastic.

Japanese artist cuffed for disseminating 3D ladyparts files • The Register

A Japanese artist has been arrested for disseminating “3D printable design files” of her own genitalia, 3DPrint.com reports.

Megumi Igarashi, 42, was cuffed by Tokyo Metropolitan Police for allegedly supplying virtual ladyparts via email to a “30-year-old man in Kagawa Prefecture” and “many others” back in March.

Igarashi’s ultimate aim is to make the vagina more “casual” in a country where it’s considered bad form to even mention ladies’ inner sanctums.

The post Apple’s New Era | Tech Talk Today 27 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Github is served with another DMCA takedown, this time for Popcorn Time. Is this the start of a bad trend, and does the open source community need to develop a Github replacement? We’ll debate.

Plus the latest Snowden leaks reveal the GCHQ’s troll like skills, Microsoft launches an assault on Chromebooks, the US says it can have your cloud data & more!

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Latest Snowden Revelations Suggest GCHQ Is Just Like 4Chan Trolls, But With More Firepower

As Greenwald details (and the embedded document below reveals), among GCHQ’s capabilities in its Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group (JTRIG) are a bunch of things that sound quite a bit like traditional internet trolling efforts. These include juicing internet polls to vote for GCHQ’s favorite candidate as well as flooding email inboxes or websites and even connecting two people on the phone and listening to the conversation.

Here are the programs Greenwald highlights:

• “Change outcome of online polls” (UNDERPASS)
• “Mass delivery of email messaging to support an Information Operations campaign” (BADGER) and “mass delivery of SMS messages to support an Information Operations campaign” (WARPARTH)
• “Disruption of video-based websites hosting extremist content through concerted target discovery and content removal.” (SILVERLORD)
• “Active skype capability. Provision of real time call records (SkypeOut and SkypetoSkype) and bidirectional instant messaging. Also contact lists.” (MINIATURE HERO)
• “Find private photographs of targets on Facebook” (SPRING BISHOP)
• “A tool that will permanently disable a target’s account on their computer” (ANGRY PIRATE)
• “Ability to artificially increase traffic to a website” (GATEWAY) and “ability to inflate page views on websites” (SLIPSTREAM)
• “Amplification of a given message, normally video, on popular multimedia websites (Youtube)” (GESTATOR)
• “Targeted Denial Of Service against Web Servers” (PREDATORS FACE) and “Distributed denial of service using P2P. Built by ICTR, deployed by JTRIG” (ROLLING THUNDER)
• “A suite of tools for monitoring target use of the UK auction site eBay (www.ebay.co.uk)” (ELATE)
• “Ability to spoof any email address and send email under that identity” (CHANGELING)
• “For connecting two target phone together in a call” (IMPERIAL BARGE)

Of course, this is not the first time that JTRIG has been called out by Glenn Greenwald for its sneaky online practices. Last time, Greenwald highlighted its practice of putting a bunch of false info online about someone to destroy their reputation.

US government says online storage isn’t protected by the Fourth Amendment

A couple months ago, a New York judge ruled that US search warrants applied to digital information even if they were stored overseas. The decision came about as part of an effort to dig up a Microsoft user’s account information stored on a server in Dublin, Ireland. Microsoft responded to the ruling and challenged it, stating that the government’s longstanding views of digital content on foreign servers are wrong, and that the protections applied to physical materials should be extended to digital content. In briefs filed last week, however, the US government countered. It states that according to the Stored Communications Act (SCA), content stored online simply do not have the same Fourth Amendment protections as physical data.

From the Justice Department’s point of view, this law is necessary in an age where “fraudsters” and “hackers” use electronic communications in not just the U.S. but abroad as well. Indeed, the Microsoft account in this case is in relation to a drug-trafficking investigation. However, Microsoft believes there are wide-ranging implications for such a statement, and it’s not the only company that thinks so. Verizon also responded, stating that this would create “dramatic conflict with foreign data protection laws” and Apple and Cisco joined in by saying this could potentially damage international relations. In the meantime, a senior counsel for the Irish Supreme Court offered that a “Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty” be pursued so that the US government can get at the email account in question.

Microsoft launches a price assault on Chromebooks | The Verge

At the company’s partner conference today, Microsoft COO Kevin Turner revealed that HP is planning to release a $199 laptop running Windows for the holidays. Turner didn’t provide specifications for HP’s “Stream” device, but he did detail $249 laptop options from Acer and Toshiba. Acer’s low-cost laptop will ship with a 15.6-inch screen and a 2.16GHz Intel Celeron processor, and Toshiba’s includes a 11.6-inch display

Turner also revealed that HP is planning to release 7- and 8-inch versions of its new “Stream” PCs for $99 this holiday season, both running versions of Windows. “We are going to participate at the low-end,” says Turner.

Microsoft to Announce Job Cuts as Soon as This Week – Bloomberg

The reductions — which may be unveiled as soon as this week — will probably be in areas such as Nokia and divisions of Microsoft that overlap with that business, as well as marketing and engineering, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the plans aren’t public. The restructuring may end up being the biggest in Microsoft history, topping the 5,800 jobs cut in 2009, two of the people said. Some details are still being worked out, two of the people said.

Home Depot begins selling MakerBot 3D printers

Home Depot became the latest retailer to offer 3D printers today when it began selling MakerBots online and in 12 stores nationwide. The store is selling three printer models, plus MakerBot’s 3D scanner and filament. The 12 stores are located in California, Illinois and New York. “Imagine a world where you can 3D print replacement parts and use 3D printing as an integral part of design and building work,” MakerBot CEO Bre Pettis said in a release.

Announcing CrossOver 13.2.0

CrossOver 13.2.0 provides much greater ease of installation for Linux
users. With CrossOver 13.2.0, more Windows applications
will run out-of-the box on a fresh installation of CrossOver.

In the Linux version of CrossOver 13.2.0 we have changed our philosophy
about what to install automatically alongside CrossOver. In the past,
CrossOver sought to have the smallest possible footprint by depending
only on packages which were absolutely necessary for CrossOver to run.
Many times, this meant that our Linux users were forced to install
additional packages to get Windows applications running. With
CrossOver 13.2.0, we have made the CrossOver Linux packages depend on
many of the most common packages which Windows applications need.
Linux users can install CrossOver 13.2.0 and Windows applications more
easily than ever before.

For both Mac and Linux, CrossOver 13.2.0 includes stability
improvements for games running with Performance Enhanced Graphics.
Problems installing Adobe Acrobat have been resolved, as has a bug
registering CrossOver for users with non-Latin characters in their
usernames.

Yet another DMCA takedown on Github: MPAA PULLS “POPCORN TIME” REPOSITORIES OFF GITHUB : linux

Aside from the fact that this is a controversial piece of software (let’s not get into it), it looks like that Github is no longer a safe place to work with.

First Qualcomm[1] , now MPAA[2] , I wonder how many projects were taken down which are not big enough thing for media to cover.

The post DMCA Whack-a-Mole | Tech Talk Today 26 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Microsoft’s new CEO grabs the public perception bull by the horns and refocuses on mobile-first. Oh, also cloud-first. But also Xbox and Office. We dig beneath the buzz and suss out what we think is truly Satya Nadella big challenge ahead.

Plus Google is giving away terabytes, Bitcoin goes to Washington, and more!

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Satya Nadella: Microsoft will focus on mobile and cloud, renew focus on productivity, won’t sell Xbox

Microsoft is the productivity and platform company for the mobile-first and cloud-first world.
We will reinvent productivity to empower every person and every organization on the planet to do more and achieve more.

Finally, every team across Microsoft must find ways to simplify and move faster, more efficiently. We will increase the fluidity of information and ideas by taking actions to flatten the organization and develop leaner business processes.

Microsoft drops case that severed DNS hosting for millions of No-IP nodes | Ars Technica

Microsoft has formally settled legal differences with No-IP, the dynamic domain name host that was kneecapped by a botnet takedown that recently knocked out service to millions of legitimate hostnames.

Microsoft surrendered the 23 No-IP domains last week. A bare-bones statement e-mailed to journalists Wednesday morning said the agreement settled a controversial lawsuit Microsoft filed in late June that allowed the software maker to confiscate 23 No-IP domain names before the service provider had an opportunity to oppose the maneuver in court. The malware families targeted in the latest takedown infected more than 7.4 million machines in the past year alone, Microsoft said.

Microsoft’s technique relies on stealth to disconnect virtually all of a campaign’s malicious servers at once before the operators have a chance to respond.

Preserving the confidentiality of the planned takedown may have played a role in No-IP claims that Microsoft officials never contacted it ahead of time about the abuse of its service. Microsoft’s takedown technique has evolved over the years. Company officials would do well to update it again to reflect the lessons learned from this episode.

With Google Offer, Cloud Storage Gets Closer to Free

Google Cloud Platform offered two terabytes of free storage for a year, through one of its partners, a startup called Panzura.

By comparison, Amazon offers a service for infrequently accessed data at one cent per gigabyte per month, which would equate to $120 a year for one terabyte of storage. Microsoft’s Azure service offers business the first terabyte of data storage for as little as 2.4 cents a gigabyte per month.

“This is a way for customers to try something new, especially if they have had some kind of aversion to using the cloud in the past,” said Chris Rimer, global head of partners at Google’s Cloud Platform business.

He said Google wants to encourage businesses to move more of their computing to the cloud. “We want to make sure potential customers are not worried about cost as a barrier to entry,” Rimer said.

“There are free offers out there for gigabytes of storage, but terabytes is where it starts to get interesting for companies,” said Rimer.

• Google Cast Screen Mirroring Feature Comes To Chromecast

Google has released a feature for Chromecast announced at Google I/O this year — Android device screen mirroring. The update today brings the much-desired feature to all Chromecast-capable devices and makes Google Cast much more similar to Apple‘s competing AirPlay offering for iOS devices.

Singapore passes law to block illegal sites

Announced back in April, the new amendment to Singapore’s Copyright Act will provide content owners with the ability make Internet service providers in the country block illegal web sites such as the infamous Pirate Bay.

Singapore’s Senior Minister of State for Law Indranee Rajah said the new law will give copyright owners “greater ability to protect their rights in the online space.”

“The prevalence of online piracy in Singapore turns customers away from legitimate content and adversely affects Singapore’s creative sector,” Rajah said.

The new law is reportedly set to come into force at the end of August, and copyright owners can apply to the court in Singapore without having to establish the liability of the network service provider.

Judge denies Silk Road’s demands to dismiss criminal prosecution

In a scathing opinion and order on Wednesday, the federal judge presiding over the Silk Road case denied the defense’s motion to dismiss all four criminal counts, rejecting every argument made. Absent a plea deal, the case will now go to trial scheduled for November in a New York federal courtroom.

In her 51-page ruling, Judge Katherine Forrest did not buy any of the defense’s arguments. Among them, Dratel claimed that the money laundering charges must fail because Silk Road’s currency of choice was Bitcoin, which he said is not money.

Bitcoin Foundation Hires Firm to Lobby Congress on Cryptocurrencies

The Bitcoin Foundation has stepped up its US lobbying efforts by hiring Washington, DC-based firm Thorsen French Advocacy.

The announcement from the Foundation represents perhaps the most high-profile bitcoin lobbying effort to date.

The lobbying efforts will seek to find a balance between privacy concerns and law enforcement as it relates to bitcoin; clarify the US government’s stance on digital currency taxation; and develop more inclusive, but effective, consumer protection rules.

Feedback:

• Oscon meetup! : LinuxActionShow

The post Microsoft's New Old | Tech Talk Today 24 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

A new cybersecurity bill is working its way through the system looks a lot like previous attempts and raises the same privacy concerns, we’ll cover the details.

Plus Samsung gets into VR and the Potato Salad Kickstarter that’s already earned $70k USD.

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Senate Panel Passes Cybersecurity Bill Despite NSA Fears

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, advanced in a 12-3 vote, would make it easier for businesses and the government to share information with each other about cyberattacks. Business groups argue that legal barriers are preventing them from getting the information they need to stop hackers.

But the privacy groups are still worried that the legislation could encourage a company such as Google to turn over vast batches of emails or other private data to the government. The information would go first to the Homeland Security Department, but could then be shared with the NSA or other intelligence agencies.

“Instead of reining in NSA surveillance, the bill would facilitate a vast flow of private communications data to the NSA,” the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and dozens of other privacy groups wrote in a letter to senators last month.

Exclusive: Samsung’s virtual reality headset will be called Gear VR, launch at IFA 2014 | SamMobile

A month ago, Engadget exclusively reported on Samsung’s upcoming VR device, which is being developed in collaboration with Facebook’s Oculus VR. Today, we can confirm that Samsung is indeed working on a virtual reality device, and it’s called the “Gear VR”. Samsung will be announcing the device, alongside the Galaxy Note 4, at IFA 2014.

Instead of making a completely standalone virtual reality headset, Samsung has developed a modular design, which allows the user to dock in a Galaxy device into the Gear VR using USB 3.0. Virtual reality effect is achieved through head tracking, and instead of equipping the headset with sensors, Gear VR makes use of the smartphone’s accelerometer, gyroscope and processing power to track head motion.

You might say that this is exactly like Google’s Cardboard VR headset, which was handed out to I/O 14 attendees, and you would be right! The main concept behind Gear VR is the same. However, the Gear VR is much more comfortable to wear, thanks to the elastic head band and soft padded cushions on each side of the device, and Samsung’s implementation is also much better than that of Google’s Cardboard.

The hardware of the device is being developed by Samsung alone, but the software is being developed in cooperation with Oculus VR

Potato Salad by Zack Danger Brown — Kickstarter

• Potato salad on Kickstarter: The project has raised more than $40,000.

Last week, Zack Brown posted a Kickstarter page titled simply “Potato Salad.”

“I’m making potato salad,” Brown wrote. Then, in case anybody was confused or skeptical or more inclined to support the preparation of a German-style potato salad than a mayo-heavy American version, he clarified: “Basically I’m just making potato salad. I haven’t decided what kind yet.”

His goal: $10.

Manjaro Linux Developers Experience A Mass Exodus

• Follow up: Manjaro Linux Developers Experience A Mass Exodus

Feedback:

• Waze claiming anonymize user data is probably arguably laughable.

The post Return of CISPA | Tech Talk Today 23 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Waze signs a deal to share data with local governments, millions are pirate streaming the World Cup, and we’ve got the details on the company’s whose mission it is to shut them down.

Plus can you hear the difference between hot and cold? We take the test.

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— Headlines —

Millions Watch World Cup Through Pirated Live Streams

Millions of people have tuned in to pirated World Cup streams thus far, with some games getting nearly half a million unauthorized viewers. TorrentFreak spoke with the French-Israeli content protection firm Viaccess-Orca, who sent roughly 2,000 takedown notices to content platforms that host or link to illegally streamed World Cup matches.

“The success rate varies per content platform but overall we manage to get 35 percent of the streaming links disabled before the game ends. I think this is a great success rate, especially compared to direct download sites,” Leporini informs us.

There are still hundreds of thousands of people getting through. The company estimates that between 100,000 and 500,000 people tune in to an average game. Up until last week, Belgium versus Russia was the most-watched match with 471,541 unauthorized viewers.

New Zealand ISP allows its customers to subscribe to the U.S. version of Netflix

Slingshot_, a local internet provider in New Zealand, wants to give its subscribers a little extra perk: The ISP just added a new “global mode”_to its internet plans that allows its customers to access video services like Netflix or Hulu without getting in trouble for coming from the wrong country

Slingshot’s global mode is essentially a VPN, meaning that it reroutes any traffic through servers situated in other countries. Slingshot subscribers using global mode may look like they’re located in New York

Anyone using this type of VPN likely violates the terms of of service of a streaming site, which is why Slingshot coyly suggests that the service is just for customers who happen to house international visitors

Why Google’s Waze Is Helping Local Governments Track Users

What may be especially tantalizing for planners is the super-accurate read Waze gets on exactly where drivers are going, by pinging their phones’ GPS once every second. The app can tell how fast a driver is moving and even get a complete record of their driving history, according to Waze spokesperson Julie Mossler.

Yet this passively-tracked data “is not something we share,” she adds. Waze, which Google bought last year for $1.3 billion, can turn the data spigots on and off through its application programing interface (API).

Waze has been sharing user data with Rio since summer 2013 and it just signed up the State of Florida. It says more departments of transport are in the pipeline.

But none of these partnerships are making Waze any money. The app’s currency of choice is data. “It’s a two-way street,” says Mossler. “Literally.”

In return for its user updates, Waze gets real-time information from Rio on highways, from road sensors and even from cameras, while Florida will give the app data on construction projects or city events.

Florida’s department of transport could not be reached for comment, but one of its spokesmen recently told a local news station: “We’re going to share our information, our camera images, all of our information that comes from the sensors on the roadway, and Waze is going to share its data with us.”

“This is a numbers game,” Mossler says. “We still want all the information we can get so that our app is as robust as possible.”

The Rise of Thin, Mini and Insert Skimmers

While most card skimmers are made to sit directly on top of the existing card slot, these newer mini-skimmers fit snugly inside the card reader throat, obscuring most of the device. This card skimmer was made to fit inside certain kinds of cash machines made by NCR.

The miniaturized insert skimmer was used in tandem with a tiny spy camera to record each customer’s PIN.

The United States is the last of the G-20 nations that has yet to transition to chip & PIN, which means most ATM cards issued in Europe have a magnetic stripe on them for backwards compatibility when customers travel to this country. Naturally, ATM hackers in Europe will ship the stolen card data over to thieves here in the U.S., who then can encode the stolen card data onto fresh (chipless) cards and pull cash out of the machines here and in Latin America.

NPR Listeners Show A Keen Ear For Temperature

NPR conducted an online poll asking listeners if they could hear the difference between cold and hot water simply by listening to the sound of the water being poured. Most listeners were spot-on.

The post Two Waze Street | Tech Talk Today 22 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Google’s big express shopping plans start to see the light of day, Apple has a new iPhone patent that might sound a little familiar.

Then we play some clips from a Fireside Chat with Google co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Find out their thoughts on the future of self driving cars, Google getting into Health and more!

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— Headlines —

Inside Google Shopping Express’ Big Plan to Race Amazon to Your Door | Re/code

Shopping Express. The service lets shoppers buy things from local retail stores through Google, which then delivers them to consumers from the physical retail store on the same or next day.

A source familiar with the company’s plans says senior Google execs have set aside as much as $500 million to expand the service nationwide. Google declined to comment on the size of the investment but made no secret of its ambition.

Google’s Fallows said a major goal of the initiative is to add more utility to product search advertisements on Google.com. On Amazon, you search for a product and can buy it immediately. On Google, that hasn’t been the case.

Eventually, Google may include some type of notification on product search ads letting shoppers know that a given product is available for same-day delivery, Fallows said.

Shoppers in cities where the service is available — mainly areas around San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City for now — visit a dedicated Google Shopping Express website where they can choose to buy goods like groceries, cameras and clothing from a selection of retail partners.

Apple developing system to automatically unlock iPhone at home

The system works by identifying where the iPhone is and allows users to set “safe” locations, where settings including security can be automatically changed removing the need for a passcode or Touch ID, for example.

“Based on the detected current location, the mobile device can modify settings and configurations. Security settings are one example of device behaviour that can be modified in accordance with embodiments of the present invention,” said Apple in the patent filing.

The patent could see iPhones unlocked within the vicinity of the home but locked while out on the street. The smartphone could determine its location using mobile phone signal, Wi-Fi networks, GPS, Bluetooth or the phone’s proximity to other phones.

At least two location indicators will be required to verify location and create the changes in security or other software features.

The patent also describes a system that could change a user’s home screen depending on where the phone is, with work related apps front and foremost when in the office or games and TV apps when in the home.

Fireside chat with Google co-founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin | Khosla Ventures

At the annual KV CEO Summit, we were fortunate to have both Larry Page and Sergey Brin sit down to discuss a wide range of topics including the acquisition that never was (although not for lack of trying!), why computers today are still pretty bad, their partnership over the last 16 years, the future of Google, government 2.0 and how machine learning and technology will shape our future of abundance.

• Google Founders Talk About Ending the 40-Hour Work Week

He acknowledged, however, that people need “things to do” and “need to feel like you’re needed,” desires that are fulfilled through labor. One solution he offered: reduce the work week and perhaps split one full-time job into multiple part-time jobs.

“You just reduce work time,” Page said. “Most people, if I ask them, ‘Would you like an extra week of vacation?’ They raise their hands, 100% of the people. ‘Two weeks vacation, or a four-day work week?’ Everyone will raise their hand. Most people like working, but they’d also like to have more time with their family or to pursue their own interests. So that would be one way to deal with the problem, is if you had a coordinated way to just reduce the workweek. And then, if you add slightly less employment, you can adjust and people will still have jobs.”

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