Improving smartphone sales and a weaker yen help Sony to $35 million quarterly profit

It may not be quite the windfall profit we're used to seeing from Apple or Samsung, but Sony has kept its financials on the positive side of the ledger over the last financial quarter — owing primarily to "strong" smartphone sales and a favorable shift in currency exchange rates. In the three months between April and June of this year, Sony saw both a "significant increase in unit sales" of its Android smartphones and an improved average selling price per handset. That's at the heart of the company's improvement in operational profitability.

The company's camera division didn't do quite as well, with sales down 10 percent relative to their income during the same period in 2012. Still, the imaging team brought in $82 million of Sony's...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/1/4577762/sony-earnings-q1-june-2013

Panasonic tries on a new look with retro-styled GX7 camera

Panasonic is introducing a retro look for its newly announced Lumix GX7, the successor to one of its best mirrorless cameras, the GX1. The new Micro Four Thirds camera includes a 16-megapixel sensor, a built-in electronic viewfinder, and a 3-inch touchscreen display. That's all housed inside of a metal body sporting the kind of two-tone throwback looks that have been in style recently, doing away with a more modernized vintage design that Panasonic has been using ever since its very first DSLR.

The sensor inside of the GX7 is apparently brand new, and Panasonic says that it should offer improvements on both color saturation and light sensitivity over its predecessor. That lends to the GX7's increased ISO range, which has jumped up to...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/1/4576638/panasonic-announces-lumix-gx7-micro-four-thirds-camera

Retina iPad mini 'likely' coming this year: WSJ

The high-resolution screen of Google's new Nexus 7 made quite a splash when it was introduced earlier this month, but it looks like it will be stacking up against a Retina version of the iPad mini later this year. The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple's suppliers are gearing up for a new mini with a high-resolution display to be released in the fourth quarter of this year. Apple is said to be sourcing the displays from three different companies: LG, Sharp, and Apple's mobile rival Samsung. According to the Journal's sources, Cupertino had originally intended to rely just on LG and Sharp, but has decided to use screens from Samsung to ensure it can meet demand.

Apple is also said to be considering a colorful array of back covers for...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/8/1/4577638/retina-ipad-mini-likely-coming-this-year-wsj

Bean there, backed that: a legume-based MP3 player sprouts on Kickstarter

Attempting to crowd fund a dedicated MP3 player in 2013 is a risky proposition. We're long removed from the days when traditional iPods could be seen on every street. Rather, we're firmly in an era where smartphones have supplanted PMPs for a vast majority of people. But having said all that, you've never seen anything quite like the Kickstarter project launched by London-based startup Cybotanics today. We haven't either. Meet iBean and iTagua, described as "the world’s very first digital audio music players designed using whole natural botanical casings, gathered sustainably from the Amazon Rainforest."

This isn't your typical MP3 player

More succinctly, they're tiny MP3 players (think a round iPod shuffle) encased in either a bean...

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Failed Kickstarter board game resurrected by game publisher Cryptozoic

After the board game The Doom That Came to Atlantic City was abruptly cancelled despite raising over $122,000, the response from Kickstarter backers was predictable (and appropriate) a mix of outrage, confusion, and disappointment. However, when Erik Chevalier — who led the project — backed out, the intellectual property behind the game reverted to its original designers: Keith Baker and Lee Moyers. On their respective blogs and on the website for games publisher Cryptozoic, they have announced that the game will be published and shipped to backers, at Cryptozoic's own expense. Cryptozoic publishes several popular titles, including the World of Warcraft Trading Card game and a Lord of the Rings card game. Baker and Moyers say that...

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Apple will keep fake chargers from hacking your iPhone with iOS 7

Last month, researchers at Georgia Tech unveiled a clever hack. Using a tiny Linux computer disguised as a USB charger, they could penetrate any iPhone or iPad's defenses and reportedly install malware in less than a minute. Thankfully, that attack vector will soon be far easier to combat: Apple has added a new prompt that warns users and asks them for permission in the latest beta of iOS 7.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4577266/apple-will-keep-fake-chargers-from-hacking-your-iphone-with-ios-7

The UK LTE race is on as O2 prepares August 29th launch

For about nine months now, EE in the UK has had an exclusive lock on LTE service, but on August 29th it's going to have company. O2 has told the BBC that it will launch its 4G service on that date in three markets — London, Leeds, and Bradford — with ten more cities slated for 4G data by year's end. Unfortunately for O2's customers, its first offering won't compare well with what EE already has up and running. It will be initially slower than the recently enhanced EE network, will cost more (O2's basic 4G tier will reportedly run £26 per month), and it won't be compatible with the current iPhone 5's LTE bands. On that last point, Telefonica UK CEO Ronan Dunne told the BBC that he "would be frankly gobsmacked if [Apple's] roadmap...

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Imgur releases iPhone and iPad app for sharing viral images

Imgur, the image sharing service known for hosting viral photos, has just launched its first iPhone and iPad app to complement the app it released on Android a little over a month ago. Imgur on iOS looks and works pretty much the same as it does on Android: users can upload, share, comment on images, and manage galleries. As it is on Android, Imgur's iOS app is free and allows users to search through the service's massive collection of photos, memes, and GIFs.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4576352/imgur-announces-iphone-ipad-app

Facebook switches on secure browsing by default

Facebook has announced that all users will now access the desktop site with https, a protocol that makes the connection between browsers and the social network more secure. This has been an option since early 2011, and about 35 percent of users had enabled it themselves before Facebook started actively switching people over this year.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4576812/facebook-turns-on-https-for-all-users

NSA responds to XKeyscore leak: 'no analyst can operate freely'

The NSA has released a full statement in response to The Guardian's leak of more classified data coming out of the NSA. The subject at hand is a program called "XKeyscore," which is purported to be a centralized interface for NSA employees to access a wide array of data from email, browsing history, and more. In the leaks, the system appears to show broad access to such data whether or not the target is a US citizen.

The NSA's response, which mirrors much of the language it had previously given The Guardian, stresses that the NSA is only targeting "legitimate foreign intelligence targets." The NSA further argues that it is not allowing "widespread, unchecked analyst access" to this data, but that analysts must go through "appropriate...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4576822/nsa-responds-to-xkeyscore-leak-no-analyst-can-operate-freely

Instagram tweaks spam filters, third-party Windows Phone apps working again for now

Instagram has tweaked its spam filtering techniques for a second time this week. The side effect of the changes has allowed third-party Windows Phone apps to once again upload photos to the service unofficially. Instagram updated its spam filters on Tuesday, resulting in existing photos from third-party apps being blocked from public view, and fresh uploads deleted from the service within seconds. It initially appeared to be an effort to block third-party apps, but an Instagram spokesperson revealed to The Verge that the change was spam-related and did not "specifically target any particular app or platform."

The new spam changes don't appear to be as aggressive as the initial update, but any alterations could be temporary. The Verge...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4576750/instagram-spam-filters-changed-third-party-apps-working-for-now

Microsoft SkyDrive, Wii U sales, and a Bang With Friends lawsuit: 90 Seconds on The Verge

You'll get thrills! Chills! Spills! Bills! Gills! Which is strange because we're not amphibious fish-people!

Or are we?

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TSA misconduct jumped up 26 percent in three years

If you've been bothered by the TSA lately, there's a good chance that you're not alone. In a review of the Transportation Security Agency's workforce, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that incidents of employee misconduct had jumped up 26.6 percent between 2010 and 2012, from 2,691 to 3,408 incidents each year. The majority of those problems were fairly mundane — anything from sleeping on the job to showing up late — but the GAO did find that there had been thousands of cases of misconduct across the three year period that potentially involved more serious affairs, including 56 accounts of theft, 97 accounts of property damage, and 456 drug and alcohol related issues.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4576468/tsa-misconduct-increase-26-percent-gao-theft-review

'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' gets its expected extended cut on November 5th

Peter Jackson has never attempted to inject brevity into his Middle-earth films. The Lord of the Rings trilogy clocked in at over nine hours across three films, and Jackson then released extended cuts that pushed the running time up even further. However, those extended editions were celebrated by fans — rather than using poorly-produced deleted scenes, Jackson wove a significant amount of material seamless back into his movies, complete with full special effects and a rewritten score. Now, Jackson and Warner Bros. have formally announced he's doing the same for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.

It's not a surprise, as Jackson has mentioned the possibility of extended Hobbit cuts pretty frequently (most recently when he liveblogged...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4576382/the-hobbit-an-unexpected-journey-gets-its-expected-extended-cut

What science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke would have sent to the aliens

Back in 1995, Tod Mesirow had the opportunity to interview 2001: A Space Odyssey author Arthur C. Clarke, and the transcript has recently been posted in the Los Angeles Review of Books . Clarke's insights into science fiction in the interview are as human and accessible as his writing, "Science fiction does not attempt to predict. It extrapolates. It just says what if? — not what will be?" Clarke mocked those that think AI isn't coming, quipping "I think that the people that say we will never develop computer intelligence — they merely prove that some biological systems don't have much intelligence."

Clarke, who died in 2008, also reminisced about his collaboration with Stanley Kubrick on 2001 — surprisingly drawing a connection...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4576496/what-science-fiction-author-arthur-c-clarke-would-have-sent-to-aliens

Like HBO, Hulu also 'actively working' to support Google Chromecast

The content providers are lining up to support Google's Chromecast. One day after HBO said it was "actively exploring" the streaming stick, Hulu has gone a step further and confirmed a solution is already in the works. “We are actively working with Google to bring Hulu Plus to the platform,” a company representative told Variety. No specific ETA has been given, but with Hulu Plus and (presumably) HBO Go set to join Netflix, Google has already locked down three services considered essential among many viewers.

Even better, Hulu says it will be bringing Chromecast integration to Hulu Plus for iOS — much like competitor Netflix. That means both Android and iOS users alike will soon enjoy smoother playback and a better overall...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4576476/hulu-plus-coming-to-google-chromecast

NSA director heckled as he pleads with hackers to 'put the facts on the table'

In a timely appearance, National Security Agency director General Keith Alexander took the stage today at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas hoping to "put the facts on the table" about recent revelations regarding his agency's various surveillance programs.

"This is perhaps one of the biggest issues facing our country today," said Alexander, claiming that he would "answer every question to the fullest extent possible." But the talk served largely as an overview of what we've already learned about the NSA's programs following disclosures from Edward Snowden. Alexander defended the agency by repeating that the metadata program which collects the phone records of all Verizon customers does not collect the content of...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4576114/nsa-director-heckled-by-hackers-at-black-hat-2013

Spotify's losses grow despite revenue doubling in 2012

A major question looms over Spotify and its streaming music competition: can anyone grow into profitable businesses? For Spotify, the answer is not yet. In 2012, Spotify's revenue doubled, but it also failed to turn a profit as its losses grew due to increased licensing fees, The Wall Street Journal said in a report. The problem here is that all Spotify does is stream music. And in order to do that, it has to pay record labels and musicians licensing fees so it'll have something to stream. For now, the fees are growing along with everything else and profit remains out of reach.

---

In 2011, when the music service made its US debut after years of popularity in Europe, Spotify brought in about $252 million in revenue, according to the Journal....

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575506/spotify-doubled-revenue-in-2012-but-losses-grow

The best of Black Hat and Def Con 2013

Cybersecurity is increasingly important — to people, businesses, and even governments. Accordingly, there is a growing fascination with hackers, those skilled programmers who seem to bend computer systems to their will. These hackers spent most of their time behind screens, but every year thousands of them head to Las Vegas for the nation's premier conventions on hacking and information security. Both founded by Jeff Moss, a.k.a. The Dark Tangent, Black Hat focuses on security professionals while Def Con is made for hackers.

The conventions have become a kind of neutral ground where hackers, security professionals, and federal agents can meet and mix with impunity, but the 2013 conferences are happening just two months after detailed...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575818/the-best-of-black-hat-and-def-con-2013

Time Warner Cable app for Samsung Smart TVs launches with on-demand streaming

Time Warner Cable has launched its on-demand streaming app, TWC TV, for Samsung's Smart TV platform. If you own a compatible set released in either 2012 or 2013, the cable operator says you'll get instant access to "over 5,000" movies and TV shows — content assembled from a total of 94 providers. Customers that subscribe to TWC's "Standard (Expanded Basic)" tier or above are eligible to use the app, though the list of on-demand programming you'll see will varies by market and according to your cable package.

Unfortunately, live TV isn't in the cards at this point; Time Warner Cable says it hopes to enable live streaming "by the end of this year." What that means is while Samsung's Smart TVs can play back a wealth of VOD content,...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575760/time-warner-cable-releases-streaming-app-samsung-smart-tv

A virtual reality Paperboy made with Kinect and the Oculus Rift

Faced with the possibilities of VR gaming, most people think of chasing dragons in Skyrim or storming compounds in Counter-Strike — but Toronto tech agency Globacore had a simpler idea. They wanted to make a virtual reality version of the classic Atari game Paperboy, powered by an exercise bike, a Kinect camera and an Oculus Rift. A bike tracking widget called Kickr lets the developers track the pedaling speed of the bike, while the Kinect tracks the paper-throwing motion of the arms, and the Oculus Rift brings it all together in an immersive VR environment. The result is called PaperDude VR, and it's a surprisingly thorough combination of VR mechanics and old-school aesthetics. So far, it only exists in the Globacore office, but...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575758/a-virtual-reality-paperboy-with-help-from-kinect-and-the-oculus-rift

Watch as this water bug gobbles up an entire fish, from the inside out

Another day, another gruesome example of Mother Nature's cruelty. And this one was caught on camera.

In a video clip as horrid as it is hypnotizing, researchers tracking the water bug Lethocerus patruelis put the eating habits of this enormous insect — adults measure around 3 inches long — on display. The bug begins its predatory quest by hiding out amidst plant life while watching a small fish, its eventual prey, swim along unsuspectingly. And then — boom! — the Lethocerus patruelis rapidly snags the fish and injects it with a digestive fluid that liquifies its insides. Not shown in the video is the final stage of the predatorial process: the Lethocerus patruelis sucks up that fishy purée using its syringe-like appendage.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575586/giant-water-bug-eats-entire-fish

I used the Nvidia Shield for a month. Ask me anything - Verge Forums

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Oakland's centralized surveillance plan faces public outcry

Tuesday night, the city of Oakland accepted $2 million dollars in federal funding for a surveillance project called the "Domain Awareness Center." As reported by Ars Technica , the project would create a central monitoring station for the feeds from nearly a thousand cameras, along with data from license plate readers, thermal imaging devices and gunshot detection devices. Most of the devices are already in place, but by collating the data in a central location, critics argue the city is enabling centralized surveillance.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575488/oaklands-centralized-surveillance-plan-faces-public-outcry

Join us this Thursday at 12PM PT / 3PM ET for The Verge Live: Moto X!

It's is a big week for Motorola. The company is set to announce its highly-anticipated Moto X — "the first smartphone you can design yourself." This Thursday, August 1st, promptly at 12PM PT / 3PM ET (all time zones), we'll be live from our studio breaking down all the news and impressions we can offer. There seems to be a lot we might know already — both via leaks and even Motorola's own official promotions. You can get caught up with our handy little guide.

Afterwards, we'll take a very quick break and give you a regularly-scheduled Vergecast. It's going to be a very interesting day, keep it locked!

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575418/the-verge-live-moto-x-august-1

Facebook takes on Twitter with embeddable statuses and photos — but there's a catch

Facebook today announced that public photos, statuses, videos, and hashtags can now be embedded on the web, just like tweets, but there's a catch: in order to embed a post, you'll need to install a Facebook plug-in on your website.

The plug-in works the same way as Facebook's popular Like button and Comments plug-ins, so it will be familiar to web developers, but it means embedding Facebook content isn't as dead-simple as being able to embed a tweet, a Vine, or an Instagram photo with some simple HTML. The first crop of sites to include the functionality will be Bleacher Report, CNN, The Huffington Post, Mashable and People.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575142/facebook-embedded-posts-statuses

Google Glass faces driving ban across UK as distraction concerns mount

Before Google Glass even reaches consumers, the UK Department for Transport is working to forbid drivers from donning the futuristic device behind the wheel. And its argument is simple: Glass takes your attention off the road. "We are aware of the impending rollout of Google Glass and are in discussion with the police to ensure that individuals do not use this technology while driving," a DfT spokesperson told Stuff .

Currently in its still-growing Explorer phase, Glass has already seen bans in locations sensitive to stealth photography (i.e. casinos), and there's also been early pushback from some restaurants and bars that oppose Google's headset from a social perspective. But a proper driving ban could be a major hindrance to Google's...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4575226/google-glass-risks-uk-driving-ban

Outlook.com still missing IMAP support after a year and 600 feature improvements

A year ago on Wednesday, Microsoft surprised the world by launching a preview of its Outlook.com webmail service. Designed as a replacement to the company's ageing Hotmail service, Outlook.com took on a new UI and features to bring it into the modern era of email. The focus was clearly Google's Gmail service, with a third of signups coming directly from Gmail and multimillion-dollar ads aimed at those particular users. After 12 months of Microsoft's new email service the company is revealing this week that it has made 600 improvements based on feedback, but one feature is still missing: IMAP.

Without IMAP, you don't get the third-party app support

IMAP is one of the two most common feature requests from users, says Dharmesh Mehta,...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4572524/outlook-one-year-on-imap-top-feature-request

US declassifies three files on secret NSA data collection

In an effort to be more transparent about government surveillance, National Intelligence director James Clapper has declassified three documents revealing information on the collection of phone and email metadata. Two of the documents are briefings that were apparently provided to all members of Congress. They discuss the legality of metadata collection, oversight of the collection, and the apparent need for the collection. The third document is the primary court order used by the government to request large swathes of metadata from telecommunication companies such as Verizon.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574802/james-clapper-declassifies-documents-nsa-metadata-surveillance

More than 1,400 cities could be underwater by century's end, according to climate-change model

There's mounting evidence that the human race is making long-term changes to the Earth's climate — CO2 levels recently reached a peak not seen in millions of years, NASA found 2012 to be the ninth-warmest year on record, and a study recently showed that it was all but certain Miami would eventually be underwater thanks to rising sea levels. However, according to a new study published by PNAS, Miami is hardly the only city facing an underwater future. According to Dr. Benjamin Strauss, a researcher who specializes in climate impacts, the greenhouse gases we've already pumped into the atmosphere have "locked-in" an eventual sea level rise of over four feet — enough to submerge more than half of the current population in 316 coastal US...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574558/more-than-1400-cities-could-be-underwater-by-centurys-end

John Wilkes Booth killed Lincoln… but who killed John Wilkes Booth?

A murdered president. A fleeing assassin. A dead man’s vertebrae. A deathbed confession and a ghastly suicide. A family’s disgrace. Conspiracy theories and courtroom battles. Secret burials and an unmarked grave. An aborted exhumation and a hopeful DNA analysis. Oh, and then there’s the riddle of that missing mummy.

It’s a story nearly 150 years in the making, steeped in death, myth, and uncertainty. Abraham Lincoln, now viewed as a martyr who ended slavery and preserved the Union, was in his time hated as much as beloved. A vaunted stage actor, John Wilkes Booth, killed him believing the death would revitalize the Southern cause. It didn’t, and Booth was hunted and himself killed. He died paralyzed and helpless, unable...

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Microsoft forced to rename SkyDrive following trademark case with broadcaster

A UK court recently ruled that Microsoft's SkyDrive name infringed on a trademark owned by British Sky Broadcasting Group (BSkyB), and the software maker has agreed to change the name of its cloud-based service worldwide as a result. In a settlement issued on Wednesday, BSkyB notes that Microsoft will not appeal the court ruling and that the company will allow Microsoft to continue using the brand "for a reasonable period of time to allow for an orderly transition to a new brand."

The agreement includes financial and other terms, but neither BSkyB or Microsoft will disclose the details as the agreement is confidential. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed the name change to The Verge. "We're glad to have resolution of this naming dispute,...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574878/microsoft-skydrive-name-change-bskyb

Twitter report shows rise in government requests, still can't separate FISA data

Twitter has released the third installation of its semiannual transparency report, showing how often it responds to requests for user information and takes down tweets based on a law enforcement or copyright request. In the first report released since the NSA's surveillance program began to spark public outrage, Twitter lamented that it was still unable to give those requests their own section. "We believe it's important to be able to publish numbers of national security requests — including FISA disclosures — separately from non-secret requests," wrote legal manager Jeremy Kessel. "Unfortunately, we are still not able to include such metrics."

Without these details, the report still shows a rise in all requests. 1,157 requests for...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574750/twitter-transparency-report-shows-rise-in-government-copyright-requests

After year long slump, Facebook stock finally rebounds to original IPO price

Facebook's IPO was an unmitigated disaster, with trading delays and accusations that the social network tipped off insiders to critical information it kept from the average shareholder. NASDAQ ended up paying a $10 million fine to the SEC over problems with the public offering.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574638/after-year-long-slump-facebook-stock-finally-rebounds-to-original-ipo

NSA database tracks email, web history, Facebook chats, and more, new documents show

The Guardian has released more information about a program that appears to let the NSA access almost any part of a web user's digital life. A set of 2010 training documents discuss a program called XKeyscore, which acts as a central interface for email, Facebook chat, web browsing history, and more. According to The Guardian, XKeyscore is available not only to members of the NSA but to outside analysts like Edward Snowden, who worked as a contractor for Booz Allen before his flight to Hong Kong, and its vast database allows users to find people by email address, name, phone number, type of browser, language used, IP address, or specific keywords. Metadata is apparently used to narrow searches, but actual content like email text is also...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574532/xkeyscore-data-tracking-program-detailed-in-documents

Facebook takes on Timehop with nostalgic 'On This Day' page

Facebook could get a little more nostalgic. The social network is currently testing a feature that will let users take a trip through the past, viewing the highlights of what they and their friends were up to exactly one year prior to the current date. The history feature — currently called "On This Day" — has begun appearing as a viewing option in select users' News Feeds. They won't be seeing mundane updates though: Facebook appears to be picking out stories with plenty of likes and comments, and leaving the more forgettable entries in the past. It's a riff on a small feature that Facebook previously tested, though in its prior incarnation, it only displayed status updates.

But the idea of taking a look back through your digital...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574482/facebook-testing-on-this-day-history-tab-news-feed

Top 10 things to be afraid of from Black Hat and Def Con

Thousands of computer hackers are heading to Las Vegas this week for Black Hat and Def Con, back-to-back information security conventions where attendees are warned not to send passwords over Wi-Fi or use the ATMs due to a surge in digital mischief-making.

It’s traditional for these skilled programmers to unveil their greatest exploits at the conventions. Here’s how to hack an iPhone within one minute of plugging it in to a tampered charger. Here’s how to "trivially" gain access to surveillance cameras in homes, banks, prisons, and military facilities.

It’s traditional for hackers to unveil their greatest exploits here

We’re all becoming increasingly reliant on technology and the internet for daily life, which opens new...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4568992/top-10-new-reasons-to-be-afraid-of-hackers-def-con-black-hat

Google to speed up Starbucks' free Wi-Fi in the US

Expanding its internet services ever further, Google has teamed up with Starbucks to outfit 7,000 of its US coffee shops with faster Wi-Fi connections. The deal sees Google replace AT&T as the official internet provider in stores, offering customers internet speeds up to ten times faster than before. For Starbucks stores in Google Fiber-enabled areas (including Kansas, Utah, and Austin), the search giant will provide a connection that is up to 100 times faster. The roll out will begin in August and will take 18 months to complete. Customers may have to wait for Google to upgrade the service in their area but as soon as it is ready, "Google Starbucks" hotspots will show them the way.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574520/google-to-speed-up-starbucks-free-wi-fi

Microsoft Office for Android now available, but not for tablets

Microsoft is extending its Office mobile software to Android this week, bringing basic editing to smartphones running Android 4.0 or higher. Following the release of Office for iPhone, the Android variant is almost identical in what it provides and its requirements. You'll need to sign into the application using an Office 365 subscription to view or edit documents, and Microsoft isn't providing a standalone or free version.

Much like the iPhone version, Office for Android includes a recent documents tab and access to create Word and Excel documents. Microsoft is optimising the Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps within this application for phones. There's no plans for an Android tablet version, and Microsoft is recommending users make use...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4571912/microsoft-office-for-android-features-screenshots

UK internet providers get into a tussle over the definition of 'superfast'

EE, the biggest carrier and currently the only provider of 4G services in the UK, has been rapped by advertising regulators over its use of the term "superfast." According to EE, the phrase captures just how speedy its LTE network is, but UK telecoms giant BT isn't prepared to let that stand. BT argues that the terminology of superfast internet should only relate to fixed-line broadband services, a market that it conveniently has a huge amount of power over.

The UK's Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) is inclined to agree with BT but in doing so shows the absurdity of the company's objection. While EE's website is deemed to be misleading, the carrier's TV adverts escape punishment because they carry small print clarifying the the...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574302/ee-bt-fight-superfast-broadband-mobile-services

Dropcam raises $30 million to expand its home surveillance revolution

Greg Duffy started Dropcam with a simple goal: find out which neighbor was letting their dog poop on his dad's lawn week after week. His father had looked into security cameras, but couldn't find one that made it easy to record, stream and monitor large amounts of video. So Duffy and his friend Aamir Virani, both software engineers, decided to build a solution. "It was pretty scrappy at first," admits Duffy. "We were buying cameras off the shelf, reverse engineering them and flashing them with our own firmware." The duo built and shipped all the early units by hand.

Fast-forward four years to today and the company is announcing a $30 million round of venture funding. It now makes its own hardware, the Dropcam HD, and says the new money...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4572462/dropcam-raises-30-million-surveillance-empire

'XCOM: Enemy Unknown' proves that premium pricing can work on iOS, claims publisher

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick believes the success of the $19.99 iOS port XCOM: Enemy Unknown has opened the door for the company to bring more console titles to mobile. Speaking on the company's Q1 2014 earnings call, Zelnick said that the game had been a success, noting that it entered the Top Ten Grossing Apps list for iPad in its first week on sale, but the CEO didn't give exact figures on how many copies had been sold.

"The success of XCOM: Enemy Unknown for iOS illustrates that consumers are willing to pay a premium price for a premium entertainment experience on any platform," Zelnick told investors. "This bodes well for the opportunity to deliver profitably our most immersive new AAA titles to mobile platforms as they...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574304/xcom-enemy-unknown-ios-premium-pricing-precedent

Syrian president recruits Instagram in ongoing propaganda war

Embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched an official Instagram account earlier this month, marking his latest efforts to control the propaganda war being waged in parallel with bloody civil conflict. The Assad regime published its first photo to the account on July 24th and has since posted 68 others. The longtime president already has a presence on both Facebook and Twitter, and at the time of this writing, has garnered more than 3,000 followers on Instagram.

As the Washington Post reports, many of Assad's Instagram photos appear to be re-posts from his Facebook and Twitter accounts, and they all cast him in a favorable light. In one shot, a smiling Assad is surrounded by a throng of supporters. In another, he's seen shaking...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574244/syria-president-bashar-al-assad-launches-instagram-account-civil-war-propaganda

Henry Ford's 'Fordlândia' was a failed attempt to bring Detroit-style living to Brazil

In 1928, Henry Ford, the founder of the Ford Motor Company, decided to bring a little bit of US suburbia to Brazil. As Gizmodo reports, the result of Ford's plan was Fordlândia, a Ford-owned town for workers that brought homes, running water, electricity, swimming pools, and American meals to the heart of Brazil's rainforest. The town was also imbued with Ford's values: women, alcohol, and tobacco were all banned within the town, including inside the workers' homes. Ultimately, the plan was unsuccessful, as Ford's rubber trees (the reason for the company's presence in Brazil) didn't flourish, and Brazilian workers showed resistance to Ford's strict values.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574260/henry-fords-fordlandia-was-a-failed-attempt-to-bring-detroit-style

BlackBerry BB10 update reportedly deleting text messages at random

A new over-the-air update meant to improve the operation of BlackBerry 10 smartphones includes a flaw that affects SMS on some devices. N4BB reports that the BlackBerry 10.1 MR update, billed as a maintenance release that helps users "keep moving," includes bugs that wipe content from text messages, delete them, or block SMS functionality completely.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574236/blackberry-10-smartphone-update-sms-flaw

Dialogue controls your smartphone from your Mac, lets you make and record phone calls

As Apple continues to refine its mobile and desktop operating systems, the company has slowly integrated messaging and other mobile-centric features into Mac OS. With an Apple ID, Mac and iOS owners can send and receive Messages and also make FaceTime video calls, but traditional phone call support has been limited to third-party apps like Skype.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574130/dialogue-app-make-receive-smartphone-calls-mac

Moto X may join iPhone 5 in using a nano-SIM

GSM Insider reports that the Motorola's hotly-anticipated Moto X smartphone will be the first Android handset to utilize the new nano-SIM standard. After a drawn-out battle over which design would be chosen, the Apple- and Nokia-backed nano-SIM proposal was adopted by ETSI, the industry body that decides on standards. Three months later, Apple announced the iPhone 5, which was the first device in the world to use the new SIM. Although Asus' PadFone Infinity tablet uses nano-SIM, no Android manufacturer has released a phone that supports the standard. According to GSM Insider's image, which was apparently leaked from Hong Kong, that's about to change.

We'll know for sure if today's rumor is true when Motorola announces its Moto X at an...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574246/moto-x-nano-sim-rumor

Google steps back from net neutrality, claims banning servers is 'industry standard'

It looks like Google is starting to see that whole net neutrality thing a little differently now that it's in the business of providing internet service. In a response to the FCC this week, the company argued that it’s justified in prohibiting Google Fiber subscribers from running servers on their shiny new gigabit connections. In the filing, originally reported by Wired , Google points to "policies of many major providers in the industry" such as Verizon and Comcast, all of whom require pricier commercial service to operate a server. Google doesn’t yet offer an equivalent tier of service to its customers.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574198/google-backtracks-on-net-neutrality-bans-servers-from-isp

Samsung claims innocence in face of benchmark-rigging allegations

Samsung has responded to allegations made by AnandTech , claiming that it is innocent of any wrongdoing. Yesterday, the site reported that Samsung engineered the Galaxy S4's benchmarking performance by allowing the GPU to run a higher clock speed than normal (533MHz vs. 480MHz), giving an 11 percent boost that users would not be able to attain under normal conditions. Samsung's response? "[We] did not use a specific tool on purpose to achieve higher benchmark scores."

Samsung adds that, "under normal conditions, the Galaxy S4 operates up to 533MHz at its best performance." The Korean manufacturer says certain "full screen apps" (any app in which the status bar isn't present) such as the camera, browser, video player, and benchmarking...

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574210/samsung-benchmark-rigging-response

Police don't need a warrant to seize phone location data, US court rules

The Fifth US Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that historical cellphone location data is not protected by the Fourth Amendment, allowing police to access the data without a search warrant. The court says that such the information is "clearly a business record" that belongs to carriers, noting that "the government does not require a member of the public to own or carry a phone... the government merely comes in after the fact and asks a provider to turn over records the provider has already created."

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4574184/5th-circuit-court-rules-no-search-warrant-needed-for-location-data

Canon wants you to shoot yourself with its tiny flipscreen HD camera

While other cameras look out to the world, Canon's new Vixia mini points the camera back at you. Geared towards the aspiring YouTube star or blogger upgrading from a lower quality webcam to full HD video, the Vixia includes an ultra wide-angle fisheye lens and a flip-up 2.7-inch touchscreen display that swivels to face forward or backward. Plus, like a GoPro for selfies, the Vixia mini outputs MP4 video to a microSD card as a stand alone device. Canon suggests possible uses such as cooking shows, guitar how-tos, or hobby recording, but it's hard to tell if these low-intensity users are likely to buy a new camera.

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via The Verge - All Posts http://www.theverge.com/2013/7/31/4573100/canon-vixia-mini-personal-recorder