Developers are excited by Google’s announcement that Android will support Vulkan. We explain what Vulkan is, the issues developers face around openGL, & why Mike is a bit skeptical.

Plus market data suggest we’ve reached peak iPad & tablets are not selling. Is it worth creating anything but consumption based apps for tablets? We’ll debate.

Plus some audience submitted topics, Apple’s 30% cut, feedback & more!

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• Get Paid to Write for DigitalOcean

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Hoopla

• Vulkan Android Support Incoming

• Rich Geldreich’s Tech Blog: Things that drive me nuts about OpenGL

• WWDC 2014 Metal for iOS 8 – YouTube

Google's adoption of #Vulkan for Android graphics should ensure that all Linux-based platforms standardize on Vulkan. Yay Google!

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) August 10, 2015

• Have we Reached Peak iPad?

• Thirty Percent

Feedback:

• RE: iOS Dev in Enterprise

• Presumption of stupidity

The post The Price Isn't Right | CR 167 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Cisco announces plans to buy OpenDNS, the European Government agrees on Net Neutrality rules, Microsoft selling Bing imaging to Uber & display ads to AOL, PayPal kills it’s terrible robocalling policy & more!

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— Episode Links —

• European Government Agrees On Net Neutrality Rules, With Exemptions
• Cisco to buy cybersecurity firm OpenDNS in $635m deal | ZDNet
• Two keys to rule them all: Cisco warns of default SSH keys on appliances | Ars Technica
• Microsoft selling Bing imaging to Uber, moving display ads to AOL | Ars Technica
• Samsung Electronics plans more Tizen smartphones this year: source | Reuters
• PayPal Just Killed Its Terrible Robocalling Policy
• In Wake Of Hack, OPM Shutters System For Federal Background Checks – ABC News

The post Openly Acquired | TTT 190 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

DuckDuckGo sees 600% user growth since the Edward Snowden leaks, we’ll play highlights of an interview with their CEO. Uber has a mess in California, Apple Watch sales numbers are in & solving a major sleep issue for many.

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Episode Links:

• Sprint Halts Data Throttling Thanks to New Net Neutrality Rules
• Uber Driver Deemed Employee By California Labor Commission | TechCrunch
• Apple Watch U.S. Sales Estimated at 2.8 Million, Sports Band May Have Base Cost of Just $2 – Mac Rumors
• Airing: the first hoseless, maskless, micro-CPAP | Indiegogo
• Apple Watch 2 Said to Feature FaceTime Camera, Expanded Wi-Fi Capabilities and New Models – Mac Rumors
• Support Tech Talk Today creating DAILY PODCASTS

The post DuckDuckGoing Up | Tech Talk Today 185 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Google Wireless rumors are getting hot, with interesting details leaking out. Apple Watch outsells Android Wear in a day & the long-term reason Android Wear might be the better bet.

Plus some good Bitcoin news & much more!

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Google’s wireless service could charge you for only the exact amount of data you use

According to details uncovered by Android Police thanks to a leaked app that will be used to support the service, Google’s wireless network — referred to as Nova in many previous rumors, but also now known as Project Fi — could charge you only for the exact amount of data you use. That is to say, there won’t be any unlimited data (as much as we would all hope from an internet-strong company like Google), but instead a “pay-as-you-go” approach.

• Google’s MVNO to offer pay-per gigabyte plans, rollover data, accompanying app, more

Apple Watch sales beat Android Wear yearly shipments in a day

In 2014, all manufacturers using Google’s smartwatch operating system — including Motorola, LG, and Samsung — sold 720,000 units.

In contrast, Apple sold an estimated 957,000 Apple Watches on the first day the devices were available for preorder.

Apple bans selfie sticks, monopods from WWDC 2015

In an update to the rules for Worldwide Developers Conference, Apple is banning 2015 attendees from using selfie sticks or any other kind of photo monopod within the bounds of either Moscone West or Yerba Buena Gardens.

New Bitcoin Foundation Director Bruce Fenton Pledges Fiscal Reform

Elected by a 5-to-1 vote, Fenton succeeds interim executive director Patrick Murck and outgoing executive director Jon Matonis, the latter of whom resigned on 30th October amid financial turmoil and ahead of staff cuts at the industry’s top trade organization.

In interview, Fenton stressed that his greatest asset to the Bitcoin Foundation would be his ability to serve as a “bridge” between the organisation’s individual and corporate members. He cited his full-time position as CEO of Atlantic Financial and involvement in bitcoin as a technology enthusiast as factors.

For art’s sake! Photoing neighbors with zoom lens not a privacy invasion | Ars Technica

The appeals court called it a “technological home invasion” but said the defendant used the pictures for art’s sake. Because of that, the First Department of the New York Appellate Division ruled Thursday in favor of artist Arne Svenson, who snapped the pics from his lower Manhattan residence as part of an art exhibit called “The Neighbors.” The ruling says:

Hillary’s Hard Drive : techtalktoday

The post Google "Watch" Me | Tech Talk Today 157 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Two members of the elementary OS project join us to discuss the recent dust up around their blog post asking for more funding from their users. We’ll ask the hard questions you’ve been wondering, get the latest from the project & talk about the future.

Plus we look at the sales for the first BQ Ubuntu Touch edition, Linus’ personal choice award, some good news for OpenShot & more!

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• Get Paid to Write for DigitalOcean

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— Show Notes: —

A Chat with elementary OS

• Daniel Foré – Google+
• Cassidy James Blaede

Brought to you by: System76

Freya Beta 2 is here!

You thought the day would never come, but after 6 months and almost 600 fixes we’re bringing you the next step on our way to a final release of elementary OS 0.3!

elementary — Payments

We explicitly say you can download Luna for free, we include a pay-what-you-want (including $0) text entry with $10 pre-filled, and we also include an explicit “Download Luna for free” link that simply sets the text entry to $0 for you.

Next, you’re given the payment/download dialog:

The text entry matches whatever was on the first screen, but we again let you change it to anything you’d like, including $0.

Users have downloaded Luna over 2,000,000 times. Around 99.875% of those users download without paying. Of the tiny 0.125% who do, the most common payments are the default $10, followed by $1. But again, only a tiny fraction of one percent of users even decide to pay in the first place.

Furthermore, we’ve received feedback that this flow is deceiving. It doesn’t make it clear enough that there are multiple payment options and it includes a payments step even if you’ve chosen to enter $0.

elementary misses the point « Blog Fiasco

A recent post on the elementary blog about how they ask for payment on download created a bit of a stir this week. One particular sentence struck a nerve (it has since been removed from the post): “We want users to understand that they’re pretty much cheating the system when they choose not to pay for software.”

elementary — How big is elementary OS really?

— PICKS —

Runs Linux

The Lego Movie… Runs Linux!

So I was watching the making of The Lego Movie with the only purpose of finding some Linux goodness. I was pretty upset when I saw Windows 7 and Photoshop at a close up, but then there is the animation (and the GNOME) stuff.

• The LEGO Movie – “Creating the Bricks” [HD]

• Linux Spotting 1

• Linux Spotting 2
• Linux Spotting 3

Desktop App Pick

Lets Make Music (LMMS)

Produce music with your computer
by creating melodies and beats, synthesizing and mixing sounds, arranging samples and much more.

Weekly Spotlight

AutoKey

AutoKey is a desktop automation utility for Linux and X11. It allows you to manage collection of scripts and phrases, and assign abbreviations and hotkeys to these. This allows you to execute a script or insert text on demand in whatever program you are using.

AutoKey features a subset of the capabilities of the popular Windows-based AutoHotkey, but is not intended as a full replacement. For a Linux-based implementation of AutoHotkey, see IronAHK. AutoKey’s GUI features a number of concepts and features inspired by the Windows program PhraseExpress.

Features

• Python scripting engine allows you to automate virtually any task that can be accomplished via the keyboard and/or mouse
• Built-in code editor with autocomplete and calltips
• Scripts are plain Python files that can be edited in any text editor
• Similarly, phrases are stored as plain text files
• Create collections of phrases/scripts in folders, and assign a hotkey or abbreviation to the folder to display a popup menu
• Regular expressions can be used to filter windows by their title or class, to exclude hotkeys/abbreviations from triggering in certain applications
• Scripts, phrases and folders can be attached to the notification icon menu, allowing you to select them without assigning a hotkey or abbreviation

Our Past Picks

These are the weekly picks provided by the Jupiter Broadcasting podcast, the Linux Action Show.

This site includes a separate picks lists for the “Runs Linux”, Desktop Apps, Spotlight Picks, Android Picks, and Distro Picks.

— NEWS —

Ubuntu Phone Sells Out During First Flash Sale

Despite the technical issues the Bq Aquaris E4.5 Ubuntu Edition handset managed to sell out its debut run.

• Ubuntu phones will be available to buy between 9-18 (CET) 2015.02.10

BQ: 12,000 orders per minute

@Baktus we experienced a huge demand this morning, receiving over 12,000 orders per minute

— BQ (@bqreaders) February 11, 2015

• Ubuntu Phone: Is It Worth It? (Aquaris E4.5) – YouTube

I am back from London. I attended the Ubuntu Phone Insider event and have an Ubuntu Phone I took back with me. Here is what think about the device and the OS. Help support my channel and make it possible for me to obtain devices to review.

VLC Media Player 3.0

VLC Media Player 3.0.0 is one of the most anticipated applications of 2015, eagerly awaited by millions of computer users worldwide. Prominent features of VLC 3.0 include Wayland support, a Chromecast output module, several Android improvements, among which we can mention rotation, opaque, and subpicture blending, as well as batch convert support.

Linux Torvalds awarded Arch Linux as the most consumer friendly distrobution

The purpose of a GNU distribution is to make it easy for users to use their system. It’s a stupid idea to force your users to compile everything from scratch,” said Linus Torvalds at the event. If you think your users are going to compile everything, only compilers will use your software.

OpenShot Video Editor for Windows, Mac, and Linux by Jonathan Thomas — Kickstarter

There are many challenges that go along with building any software. Some are obvious and some are more subtle. However, some challenges, as I’ve recently realized, aren’t related to computers at all. Sometime in late October, my wife and I decided that it would be fun to put our house on the market, and “test the waters”. We have been talking about moving out of Arlington, TX (a relatively big city) for years, and heading towards a bit more land, and less city. As fate would have it, we had an offer on our house within 1 week, and all of a sudden needed to find a new house, make repairs, pack, rent a moving truck, etc… etc… Needless to say, this required a lot of time and energy.

— FEEDBACK —

• Linux Desktop Success

• Drunk on Wine

• GSM / VHF Radio
  

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• Noah pics

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The post Questions for elementary OS | LAS 352 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

We look at Apple’s big quarter & break down the most important numbers, good & bad. Plus we discuss YouTube’s switch to HTML5, the Ghost vulnerability impacting Linux & more!

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Apple Just Had The Most Profitable Quarter Of Any Company Ever | TechCrunch

For reference, that means **Apple makes around $8.3 million dollars per hour ** in profit (24 hours a day).

Apple Reports Record Earnings and iPhone Sales: $18B Profit on $74.6B in Revenue for Q1 2015 – Mac Rumors

Apple sold a record 74.5 million iPhones during the quarter, up from 51 million a year earlier, while Mac sales were also strong with 5.5 million units sold, up from 4.8 million units in the year-ago quarter. iPad sales were down, however, falling to 21.4 million from 26 million.

Apple breaks its sales records with 74.5M iPhones in Q1 2015, but iPad sales decline 21% to 21.4M | VentureBeat | Business | by Emil Protalinski

Helping the iPhone was undoubtedly Apple’s moves in China — a report earlier today estimated it shipped more smartphones than any other company in the country last quarter. Furthermore, last week a study found iPhones accounted for half of all new U.S. smartphone activations in the same quarter.

Apple’s Cash Is Now Greater Than The Market Cap Of These S&P500 Companies | Zero Hedge

Apple – which is the largest company in the world with market cap of over $660 billion – has a greater cash hoard than the market cap of all but 17 S&P 500 companies.

The table below shows Apple’s cash holdings in selected S&P500 market cap context.

YouTube Engineering and Developers Blog: YouTube now defaults to HTML5 video

Over the last four years, we’ve worked with browser vendors and the broader community to close those gaps, and now, YouTube uses HTML5 <video> by default in Chrome, IE 11, Safari 8 and in beta versions of Firefox.

Highly critical “Ghost” allowing code execution affects most Linux systems | Ars Technica

The vulnerability in the GNU C Library (glibc) represents a major Internet threat, in some ways comparable to the Heartbleed and Shellshock bugs that came to light last year. The bug, which is being dubbed “Ghost” by some researchers, has the common vulnerability and exposures designation of CVE-2015-0235. While a patch was issued two years ago, most Linux versions used in production systems remain unprotected at the moment. What’s more, patching systems requires core functions or the entire affected server to be rebooted, a requirement that may cause some systems to remain vulnerable for some time to come.

The post Ghost in the Glibc | Tech Talk Today 123 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Amber alerts in your feed, UK encryption crackdown, MacBooks selling like crazy, AI warnings & Drone journalism takes flight.

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Introducing AMBER Alerts on Facebook

With more than 725 children recovered as a direct result of AMBER Alerts since the program launched in 1996, we know the system works. We hope our new delivery mechanism will help increase that number and reunite even more families.

British Prime Minister Suggests Banning Some Online Messaging Apps

That was the message delivered on Monday by Prime Minister David Cameron, who said he would pursue banning encrypted messaging services if Britain’s intelligence services were not given access to the communications.

Apple Maintains Mac Sales Momentum in Holiday Quarter

With its 11.7 percent share of the market, Apple is the third largest PC vendor in the United States, behind HP and Dell, which captured 29.2 and 22.6 percent of the market, respectively. Lenovo and ASUS came in behind Apple, with 10.2 and 6.8 percent of the market, respectively.

Artificial intelligence experts sign open letter to protect mankind from machines

Famed physicist Stephen Hawking and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk have also voiced their concerns about allowing artificial intelligence to run amok. “One can imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand,” Hawking said in an article he co-wrote in May for The Independent. “Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all.”

Google launches Chrome Remote Desktop for iOS | VentureBeat

Google today launched its Chrome Remote Desktop app for iOS, some nine months after releasing the tool on its own mobile platform. Like its Android counterpart, the iOS version lets you remotely control your computer using your smartphone or tablet. You can download the new app from Apple’s App Store

CNN’s Drone Journalism Is Just the Beginning – NationalJournal.com

“Our aim is to get beyond hobby-grade equipment and to establish what options are available and workable to produce high-quality video journalism using various types of UAVs and camera setups,” CNN Senior Vice President David Vigilante, said in a press release.

The development is significant because currently the FAA does not allow Unmanned Aerial Vehicles for commercial use, save for a few exceptions for the entertainment industry and agriculture. This loosening of the rules could pave the way not just for aerial news-gathering but also for Amazon’s proposed air delivery service.

• My first day with my drone – YouTube

The post Alert Fatigue | Tech Talk Today 115 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

The Feds want Apple to break iOS encryption using an 18th-century law & it certainly fails the sniff test. Sony is playing the victim after it’s recent breach & the hype is reaching new levels of absurd. Plus the decade old iTunes lawsuit that could feature testimony from Steve Jobs, we’ll tell you how.

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Feds want Apple’s help to defeat encrypted phones, new legal case shows

Prosecutors invoke 18th-century All Writs Act to get around thorny problem.

Newly discovered court documents from two federal criminal cases in New York and California that remain otherwise sealed suggest that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is pursuing an unusual legal strategy to compel cellphone makers to assist investigations.

In both cases, the seized phones—one of which is an iPhone 5S—are encrypted and cannot be cracked by federal authorities. Prosecutors have now invoked the All Writs Act, an 18th-century federal law that simply allows courts to issue a writ, or order, which compels a person or company to do something.

Ars is publishing the documents in the California case for the first time in which a federal judge in Oakland specifically notes that “Apple is not required to attempt to decrypt, or otherwise enable law enforcement’s attempts to access any encrypted data.”

The two orders were both handed down on October 31, 2014, about six weeks after Apple announced that it would be expanding encryption under iOS 8, which aims to render such a data handover to law enforcement useless. Last month, The Wall Street Journal reported that DOJ officials told Apple that it was “marketing to criminals” and that “a child will die” because of Apple’s security design choices.

Apple did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

DOJ is uing an Antiquated 1789 ‘All Writs Act’ To Try To Force Phone Manufacturers To Help Unlock Encrypted Phones

Ars went in person to the Oakland courthouse on Wednesday to obtain the documents and is publishing both the government’s application and the judge’s order for the first time here. The All Writs Act application and order are not available via PACER, the online database for federal court records.

“This Court has the authority to order Apple, Inc., to use any capabilities it may have to unlock the iPhone,” Garth Hire, an assistant US attorney, wrote to the court and cited the All Writs Act.

Cyber Ring Stole Secrets For Gaming US Stock Market

Reuters has the scoop this morning on a new report out from the folks at FireEye about a cyber espionage ring that targets financial services firms. The campaign, dubbed FIN4 by FireEye, stole corporate secrets for the purpose of gaming the stock market. FireEye believes that the extensive cyber operation compromised sensitive data about dozens of publicly held companies. According to the report, the victims include financial services firms and those in related sectors, including investment bankers, attorneys and investor relations firms. Rather than attempting to break into networks overtly, the attackers targeted employees within each organization. Phishing e-mail messages led victims to bogus web sites controlled by the hackers, who harvested login credentials to e-mail and social media accounts. Those accounts were then used to expand the hackers’ reach within the target organization: sending phishing email messages to other employees.

Sony hires Mandiant after cyber attack, FBI starts probe | Reuters

Sony Pictures Entertainment has hired FireEye Inc’s Mandiant forensics unit to clean up a massive cyber attack that knocked out the studio’s computer network nearly a week ago, three people with knowledge of the matter said on Sunday.

• New evidence points to North Korean involvement in Sony Pictures hack | The Verge

New evidence is emerging that suggests North Korea may be behind the hack. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that researchers investigating the hack have found the malicious code to be almost exactly the same as the code used in a March 2013 attack on a series of South Korean banks and broadcasters, an attack widely believed to have been conducted by North Korea. Re/code had previously reported that Sony was investigating a North Korean connection, but this new analysis is the most definitive evidence unearthed so far.

• Sony Restored After Hacking, Nears Deal For NYPD Docu ‘The Seven Five’ | Deadline

Sony Pictures has gotten its computer systems back online, with emails and everything else up and running again.

Google sold more Chromebooks to US schools than Apple did iPads in Q3

According to the latest data from IDC, Google, for the first time ever, has overtaken Apple in United States schools. The research firm claims that Google shipped 715,000 Chromebooks to schools in the third quarter, while Apple shipped 702,000 iPads to schools. Chromebooks as a whole now account for a quarter of the educational market (via FT).

Chromebooks start at $199, while last year’s iPad Air, with educational discounts applied, costs $379. The research firm also says that many school corporations prefer the full keyboard found on Chromebooks instead of the touchscreen found on iPads. Some schools that use iPads, however, supply students with a keyboard case as well, but that only further increases the cost of iPads compared to Chromebooks.

Apple faces trial in decade-old iTunes DRM lawsuit | ITworld

Plaintiffs in the Apple iPod iTunes antitrust litigation complain that Apple married iTunes music with iPod players, and they want $350 million in damages. The lawsuit accuses Apple of violating U.S. and California antitrust law by restricting music purchased on iTunes from being played on devices other than iPods and by not allowing iPods to play music purchased on other digital music services. Late Apple founder Steve Jobs will reportedly appear via a videotaped statement during the trial, scheduled to begin Tuesday morning in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California.

The original January 2005 complaint in the case references a music distribution industry that no longer exists nearly a decade later. The document refers to iTunes competitors Napster, Buy.com, Music Rebellion and Audio Lunch Box, along with digital music players from Gateway, Epson, RCA and e.Digital.

The opening paragraphs of the complaint talk about defunct CD seller Tower Records.

Apple has monopoly market power, lawyers for plaintiff Thomas Slattery wrote. “Apple has rigged the hardware and software in its iPod such that the device will not directly play any music files originating from online music stores other than Apple’s iTunes music store,” they wrote.

Apple removed DRM (digital rights management) from iTunes in early 2009, so the lawsuit covers iPods purchased from Apple between September 2006 and March 2009.

The post Ghosts of DRM Past | Tech Talk Today 99 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

An AT&T insider steals customer info, Samsung’s sales could be slipping by as much as 60% and Yahoo gets bit by Shellshock.

Plus our Kickstarter of the week & much more!

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AT&T Hit By Insider Breach | Threatpost | The first stop for security news

AT&T is warning consumers about a data breach involving an insider who illegally accessed the personal information of an unspecified number of users. The compromised data includes Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers.

In a letter sent to the Vermont attorney general, AT&T officials said that the breach occurred in August and that the employee in question also was able to access account information for AT&T customers.

“We recently determined that one of our employees violated our strict privacy and security guidelines by accessing your account without authorization in August 2014, and while doing so, would have been able to view and may have obtained your account information including your social security number and driver’s license number. Additionally, while accessing your account, the employee would have been able to view your Customer Proprietary Network Information (CPNI), without proper authorization,” said Michael A. Chiarmonte, director of finance billing operations at AT&T, in a letter to the Vermont AG.

The CPNI he referred to in the letter includes data that’s related to the services that consumers buy from the company. Chiarmonte said that the letter that the employee responsible for the breach no longer works for AT&T. It’s not clear from AT&T’s disclosure how many consumers have been affected by the breach or which other states may have citizens who are affected.

As a result of the breach, AT&T is offering affected customers a year of free credit monitoring, as has become customary in these incidents.

Samsung Warns Weak Q3 Earnings – Business Insider

Samsung warned Monday night that its third-quarter earnings will be weaker than expected.

The company said it would report an operating profit of $3.8 billion for the quarter ending in September — a decline of nearly 60 percent from the same time a year earlier. Sales fell to $44 billion, off 20 percent from a year ago. […]

The South Korean electronics giant said that while smartphone shipments increased, its operating margins fell because of higher marketing costs, fewer shipments of high-end phones and a lower average selling price for the devices.

The company said it is responding with a new smartphone lineup that will include new mid-range and low-end devices, which would make Samsung’s products more competitive in markets such as China.

Hackers Compromised Yahoo’s Servers Using Shellshock

The exploits were first discovered by security researcher, Jonathan Hall. Hall pointed to two Yahoo Games servers that had been exploited. After Yahoo was contacted by Security Week it issued the following statement:

A security flaw, called Shellshock, that could expose vulnerabilities in many web servers was identified on September 24. As soon as we became aware of the issue, we began patching our systems and have been closely monitoring our network. Last night, we isolated a handful of our impacted servers and at this time we have no evidence of a compromise to user data. We’re focused on providing the most secure experience possible for our users worldwide and are continuously working to protect our users’ data.

• Yahoo! got hacked this morning… Hooray for Shellshock! : technology

• Shellshock: Romanian hackers are accessing Yahoo servers, claims security expert

Plex Launches On Xbox One

The Plex app for Xbox One is a new approach to Plex overall, with a landscape interface that Plex co-founder and Chief Product Officer Scott Olechowski says is admittedly due partly to design requirements set out by the Xbox team, but that also will make its way back to the wider suite of Plex software on other platforms, too.

“[Xbox] certainly kind of encouraged this landscape type scrolling, but the more we used this the more we realized how well it works,” he said. “You’ll see this approach taken in other places. The more we used it, the more we realized it’s more natural. We kind of fell in love with aspects of it, [and] over time we want to have a more consistent experience.”

• Report: Microsoft Sells 100,000 Xbox Ones in China

The Xbox One, the first official video game console to launch in China in 14 years, has started its console life in the middle kingdom with a bang! According to Chinese news sources, the Xbox One sold over 100,000 units within the first week of sales.

KICK STATER OF THE WEEK: Granola Strolla – Portable Solar USB charger by Granola Strolla Inc. — Kickstarter

GranolaStrolla is a portable, affordable and easy to use solar charged batterypack able to charge USB devices as fast as a wall charger

The post AT&T's Identity Giveaway! | Tech Talk Today 71 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

A major Xen flaw forces the “cloud” to reboot, we share the details. ComputerCop malware pitched as saving the children turns out to be major spyware.

Plus a big Adobe Linux support rant, the Mac botnet that reads reddit & more!

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Rackspace Joined Amazon in Patching, Rebooting Cloud Servers

About a quarter of Rackspace’s 200,000-plus customers were impacted when the cloud provider had to patch a flaw in the Xen hypervisor.
Rackspace, like cloud competitor Amazon Web Services, was forced to reboot some of its servers after patching them to fix a security flaw in some versions of the XenServer hypervisor.

The cloud provider had to patch an untold number of servers in its global data centers over the weekend and then reboot them, which caused disruption to about a quarter of Rackspace’s more than 200,000 customers, according to President and CEO Taylor Rhodes. The issue was further complicated by a tight deadline—the vulnerability was first discovered early last week, and a patch wasn’t worked out with Xen engineers until late Sept. 26.

AWS started sending out letters to its customers Sept. 24 informing them that there was an issue, but assured them that the problem was not related to the Bash bug that arose last week as a threat to systems running Unix and Linux. Officials instead let them know that the problem was with the Xen hypervisor, and that a patch was being worked on.

• Security bug in Xen may have exposed Amazon, other cloud services [Updated] | Ars Technica

The bug, introduced in versions of Xen after version 4.1, is in HVM code that emulates Intel’s x2APIC interrupt controller. While the emulator restricts the ability of a virtual machine to write to memory reserved specifically for its own emulated controller, a program running within a virtual machine could use the x2APIC interface to read information stored outside of that space. If someone were to provision an inadvertently buggy or intentionally malicious virtual machine on a server using HVM, Beulich found that VM could use the interface to look at the physical memory on the physical machine hosting the VM reserved for other virtual machines or for the virtualization server software itself. In other words, an “evil” virtual machine could essentially read over the shoulder of other virtual machines running on the same server, bypassing security.

• XSA-108 – Xen Security Advisories

EFF: Security software distributed by cops is actually spyware in disguise

Various schools, libraries and ordinary American families might have been using a “security” software called ComputerCOP for years. After all, they probably got their copy from cops, attorney’s offices or other branches of law enforcement, which tout it as a way to protect children online.

One of the main feature of ComputerCop is a keylogger called KeyAlert. Keyloggers record all keystrokes made on a computer keyboard, including credit card information and username and password combinations. KeyAlert’s logs are stored unencrypted on Windows computers, and on Macs they can be decrypted with the software’s default password. The software can also be configured so that trigger words email an alert to the computer’s owner.

KeyAlert must be installed separately from the rest of the ComputerCop software, but not all versions of ComputerCop have been distributed with it. There’s no way to configure KeyAlert for a particular user, so it’s possible to use it against anybody using the computer — not just kids.

“When that happens, the software transmits the key logs, unencrypted, to a third-party server, which then sends the email,” the EFF report said.

According to the foundation, law enforcement agencies typically buy between 1,000 and 5,000 copies of ComputerCOP for a few dollars per piece — and yes, they use taxpayer dollars for the purchase. Within the past two years for instance, several Attorney’s Offices, including San Diego’s, bought 5,000 pieces for 25 grand.

• ComputerCOP: The Dubious ‘Internet Safety Software’ That Hundreds of Police Agencies Have Distributed to Families | Electronic Frontier Foundation

Adobe Pulls Linux PDF Reader Downloads From Website – OMG! Ubuntu!

As flagged by a Reddit user who visited the Adobe site to grab the app, Linux builds are no longer listed alongside other ‘supported’ operating systems.

Adobe is no stranger to giving penguins the brush off. The company stopped releasing official builds of Flash for Linux in 2012 (leaving it to Google to tend to), and excluded Tux-loving users from its cross-platform application runtime “Air” the year before.

All is not lost. While the links are no longer offered through the website the Debian installer remains accessible from the Adobe FTP server.

China pre-orders 2 million iPhone 6 handsets in just 6 hours

The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were delayed in China as the result of trouble for Apple securing the necessary regulatory approvals from the country’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. In its absence, rival company Samsung rushed to release their new flagship handset in the country.

Despite China’s absence, however, Apple’s eagerly-anticpated handsets sold 10 million+ units in their opening weekend alone.

According to new reports coming out of China, both retailers and carriers have taken in a massive 2 million reservations just six hours after putting the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus on earlier-than-expected pre-order.

New Mac botnet malware uses Reddit to find out what servers to connect to

Mac users should beware of some new malware spreading, that tries to connect infected machines with a botnet for future exploitation. As detected by Dr Web, the malicious worm (dubbed Mac.BackDoor.iWorm) first checks whether any interfering applications are installed on the Mac.

If it is clear, it calls out to Reddit posts to find the IP addresses of possible servers to callback too. Although these posts have been deleted, it’s not hard for the people behind the exploit to repost them at a later time. Once connected to the botnet, the infected Mac can be literally instructed to perform almost any task the hackers want, such as redirect browsing traffic to potentially steal account credentials for instance.

Dr.Web estimates over 15,000 distinct IP addresses have been connected to the botnet already. Although 15,000 IPs does not directly translate into 15,000 separate infected users, it is indicative of a rather large base for a Mac worm.

The post ComputerCop Malware | Tech Talk Today 69 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mandatory Google+ Gmail Integration Quietly Shelved | WordStream

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

DuckDuckGo joins Google in being blocked in China

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

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

Apple Mac iOS Rumors and News You Care About

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

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

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

A lot’s happened over our holiday break, we’ll round up the critical revelations in the NSA spying programs, and the major legal challenges the NSA is facing.

Then: On January 1st 2014 recreational cannabis stores open their doors in Colorado, and sparked interest around the world. We’ll check in on the first few days of making history.

Now the national debate has started, and the pundits take to the air to weigh in, but their analysis misses the target.

Plus live calls, our follow up, and much much more.

On this week’s Unfilter.

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— Show Notes —

NSA is CRAZY

• Senator presses NSA to reveal whether it spies on members of Congress | World news | theguardian.com

Sanders, in a letter dated 3 January, defined “spying” as “gathering metadata on calls made from official or personal phones, content from websites visited or emails sent, or collecting any other data from a third party not made available to the general public in the regular course of business”.

• NSA exploring alternatives to holding database of domestic phone records

The NSA’s director, Gen. Keith Alexander, told the advisory panel, the Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies, that the “NSA itself has seriously considered moving to a model in which the data are held by the private sector.” But, according to a review group member, Alexander told the group that “no one else wanted it — especially not the phone companies.” Alexander, the member said, “described it as a ‘bit of a hot potato.’ ”

• ACLU will appeal ruling that NSA bulk phone record collection is legal

As expected, on Thursday the ACLU filed notice that it will appeal Pauley’s decision before the second circuit court of appeals. The civil liberties group said in a statement that it anticipates making its case before the appellate court in the spring.

“The government has a legitimate interest in tracking the associations of suspected terrorists, but tracking those associations does not require the government to subject every citizen to permanent surveillance,” deputy ACLU legal director Jameel Jaffer said in the statement.

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Devil Weed Takes Root in America

• Colorado Recreational Marijuana Sales Exceed $5 Million In First Week

Owners of the 37 new dispensaries around the state reported first week retail sales to The Huffington Post that, when added together, were roughly $5 million.

Prices also were boosted by the state’s 25 percent tax on retail purchases, including a 15 percent excise tax and a 10 percent sales tax. Voters approved the levy in November. Local taxes can add more to what customers pay.

• Colorado is running low on (legal) marijuana – The Margin – MarketWatch

Six days after sales became legal, stores are rationing how much they sell, and a company that makes cannabis-infused sparkling fruit drinks, chocolates, mints and more ran out of supplies in just three days, Denver’s local ABC affiliate reported. Among retailers, Lodo Wellness Center in downtown Denver, for example, is limiting customers to an eighth of an ounce, or one-eighth of what they can legally buy, it said.

The ArcView Group, which matches marijuana entrepreneurs and investors, has estimated the legalized pot market in the U.S. could reach $10.2 billion over the next five years, from $1.44 billion last year, as other states join Colorado and Washington in legalizing recreational marijuana use.

The Money Problem

• “People think we all became millionaires,” Ortega said. “But as a business owner, I can’t write anything off for the last three years.”

Still, the federal prohibition means banks won’t accept marijuana businesses for traditional bank accounts, and retailers said they can’t take advantage of traditional business tax writeoffs.

• “Absurd on every single level”: How the feds may be crippling the legal pot industry

Financial institutions don’t want to run afoul of the Anti-Money Laundering Act, which can charge fines of up to $500,000 per transaction for working with companies who sell illegal products. Though Colorado and Washington have been cleared for adult recreational use sales, and 21 states (plus the District of Columbia) have legalized pot for medicinal use, marijuana remains illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act. Even a state-owned bank, which one Washington lawmaker has proposed, would have to abide by federal banking laws. The discrepancy between state and federal law puts financial institutions at risk of money laundering prosecution, and they want precise assurances before assuming that risk. “They want the safe harbor to be so abundantly clear,” said Rep. Heck.

The irony here is rich. A year ago, British-based bank HSBC was fined $1.9 billion for actual money laundering for Mexican drug cartels, suspected of killing thousands of innocent civilians. HSBC had no problem doing very profitable business with the illegal drug trade, and they basically got away with it, with no criminal prosecution and a paltry fine. But in Washington and Colorado, you have legal businesses operating within state law, and no bank will touch them. “I guess they don’t think we’re big enough dollar-wise for them to risk it,” said Alex Cooley of Solstice. “But it’s crazy, in Washington, Bank of America is the state bank. They’ll take our tax revenue from the state but they won’t take our money.”

The Legalization Trend

• Bill Aims For Tennessee To Legalize Medical Marijuana
• Agencies prepare for new Illinois medical marijuana law
• The Future Of Legal Weed Is Bright. Here’s Where It’s Headed Next

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The post Sky “High” Sales | Unfilter 80 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Blink a new fork of Webkit announced by Google looks to reignite the age old browser war, but this time around Mike and Chris think it’s only going to hurt developers, support personnel, and end users.

Plus the return of a notorious patent troll, and you won’t believe what they are claiming this time. Betting on the OUYA, a big batch of your emails, and much more!

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— Show Notes —

Feedback

• Khalil share some more disappointing USC news
• Nick writes in asking if SPAs are crazy? And is looking for tips on how to influence the technical direction of his company without stirring the pot.
• Juris has been coding nights and weekends but does not work in IT and would like to make the leap. But how?
• Lots of Play! feedback.
• Tushar doesn’t feel that the cloud is “ready yet” and has some questions about the QT license.
• Krasi’s email: Trying something New

Dev World Hoopla

Lodsys: Patent troll Lodsys sues 10 mobile game makers, despite Apple’s intervention
Chrome gone wild!
Ouya Smackdown: Ouya review: can an indie console take on Sony and Microsoft? | The Verge

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The post Browser War 2.0 | CR 44 first appeared on Jupiter Broadcasting.

Much more than just a touch of Ubuntu, we take a deep dive into the Ubuntu Touch Preview and how they’ve pulled it off, the surprising components of Android that are being used, and why it means Ubuntu Touch will be on hundreds of popular devices soon.

Plus we’ve got an explanation of Linus’ recent blow up, the big news for Btrfs, some Steam secrets revealed…

AND SO MUCH MORE!

All this week on, The Linux Action Show!

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