Tuesday, December 31, 2013

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Apple's Siri could one day find your photos via your voice

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Samsung, Apple in talks to end patent battle, report says

Samsung and Apple are trying again to come together on a possible patent accord, according to a new report.

Despite a two-year legal battle that appeared to have no end in sight, Apple and Samsung have started discussing the possibility of inking a royalties deal and putting an end to all of their litigation, an official at the Korea Fair Trade Commission told the Korea Times in a report published on Sunday.

According to that official, the talks are in their "working-level" stage right now, and the companies are attempting to reduce "differences over royalty payments." The Korean regulator is also working with American and European antitrust watchdogs to aid in arriving at a deal.

Related storiesNokia wins injunction against all HTC devices (in Germany)Apple 12 Days app offers 'Hugo' or 'Home Alone' for freeApple's Siri could one day find your photos via your voiceSamsung chip advance paves way for phones with 4GB memoryHow much would you pay for a 110-inch Ultra HDTV?

Apple and Samsung have been suing each other all over the world over the last few years. Last year, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung Electronics chief Choi Gee-sung tried to hash out an agreement to end their patent dispute, but those 17-hour talks failed. Apple has since won an important patent infringement case in the US, which might have prompted Samsung to make a move on arriving at an agreement. That case alone could see Apple net $890 million.

At this point, Apple and Samsung both believe the other company is being unfair in the dollar values they want to place on the overall settlement. Samsung is willing to enter into a "cross-licensing" deal with Apple, where both companies can get the intellectual property they need for a set price, sources told the Korea Times. Apple is asking Samsung to pay a more than $30 fee for every device found to be in violation of its patents, according to the report.

If the companies can't arrive at a deal, a long, arduous legal process awaits. Early next year, the companies will again wage a patent-infringement battle, followed by several others.

CNET has contacted both Apple and Samsung. We will update this story when we have more information.

Topics: Corporate and legal Tags: Apple, Samsung, patents, mobile

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Apple 12 Days app offers 'Hugo' or 'Home Alone' for free

(Credit:Screenshot by Lance Whitney/CNET)

iPhone and iPad users able to tap into Apple's 12 Days of Gifts app can score a free film as Monday's treat.

Through the app, Apple has been doling out free downloads since December 26 and will continue playing virtual Santa until January 6. The gifts vary based on your country.

People in the US or Canada can download "Hugo," a 2011 film from renowned director Martin Scorsese. Folks outside the US and Canada instead get "Home Alone," the 1990 Christmas comedy directed by Chris Columbus and starring Macaulay Culkin.

The 12 Days app is compatible with the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. However, it requires iOS 7.0 or higher. That means those of you with older iOS devices stuck on version 6.x are out in the cold this holiday season.

Topics: Apple, Apps, iOS Tags: iPad, 12 Days of Gifts, iPhone, Home Alone, Hugo, Apple, iOS

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Hacker tried to sell access to BBC server -- report

A Russian hacker wasn't exactly in the Christmas spirit when he reportedly tried to sell access to a BBC server on December 25.

Apparently first spotted by cybersecurity firm Hold Security, the recent attack hit a BBC FTP server and was conducted by a "notorious Russian hacker" known as "Hash" and "Rev0lver," Reuters reported on Sunday. No evidence has turned up indicating that the hacker stole any actual information.

But "Hash" attempted to make a Christmas Day profit out of his exploits, according to Hold Security founder Alex Holden. The hacker tried to sell access to the server to fellow cybercriminals, Holden told Reuters. "Hash" even showed other hackers certain information that could only be obtained by someone who controlled the server.

Holden confirmed the discovery in an e-mail sent to CNET:

We discovered the situation through our Deep Web Monitoring service. As a part of the service to our customers, we search the Deep Web (hacker forums and other communications) for any evidence of breaches of our customers' data. However, we often see other hacker activities like this one. In short, we saw hacker "Hash" trying to sell access to the BBC server. As a proof, he was offering a screenshot of his access which we found to be credible. To-date we saw no evidence that he was successful in selling this access or if any other data had been taken from BBC.

The server has since been secured, a person familiar with the cleanup effort told Reuters. But the BBC itself has been mum about the matter, telling Reuters that "we do not comment on security issues."

The FTP site was used by BBC reporters to send in stories and by advertisers to upload media files, according to BBC News.

Topics: Cybercrime, Security, Privacy and data protection, Vulnerabilities and attacks, Hacks Tags: BBC, hack, cybercriminal, security, hacker

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A non-Windows OS? Microsoft drops clues

"X" marks the targeted M# spot, according to this illustration by Midori team member Joe Duffy.

(Credit:Joe Duffy)

Over the past couple of weeks, there were two interesting developments around Microsoft's "Midori" operating system project.

First, I heard from two of my contacts that Midori -- Microsoft's non-Windows-based operating system project -- moved into the Unified Operating System group under Executive Vice President Terry Myerson. (Before that, it was an incubation project, without a potential commercialization home inside the company.)

Secondly, Microsoft officials seemingly gave the green light to some of the Midori team to go public with more details about the project. Specifically, Joe Duffy, one of the Midori team members, blogged on December 27 about the language used to develop Midori, which the Midori team built alongside the OS itself.

That language, codenamed "M#," ("M Sharp") according to several different sources of mine, is an extension of Microsoft's C# language. According to a self-identified former Softie on a Reddit thread discussing Duffy's post, this new language "grew out of Sing#, the system language of Microsoft Research's Singularity OS."

And according to Duffy's post about the new language, which he calls "C# for Systems Programming," this new language may ultimately be open sourced. But before that happens, Duffy and his cohorts plan to reimplement M# on top of Microsoft's still-unfinished "Roslyn" compiler-as-a-service technology.

Midori: What we've gleaned so far
A skunkworks team inside Microsoft has been working on Midori since at least 2008 (which is the first time I blogged about the Midori codename and effort). The Midori team can trace its early roots to "Singularity" the Microsoft Research-developed microkernel-based operating system written as managed code.

Related storiesSupply pinch dogs Microsoft's Surface tabletsMicrosoft's 2014 makeover: It's all up to the next bossApple, Microsoft group to sell Nortel patentsMicrosoft-Intel 2-in-1 tablets have legs but still wobblyiPad, Surface, Kindle owners reveal their top gripes

Midori originally was championed by Microsoft Chief Technology Officer Eric Rudder. The Midori team consisted of a number of all-star Microsoft veterans (including Duffy), plus some additional high-flying developers from outside the company.

Early Midori design documents indicated that the Midori OS would be built with distributed concurrency and cloud computing in mind. Microsoft also supposedly planned to try to provide some kind of compatibility path between Windows and Midori (which isn't based on Windows at all). The early design documents also indicated that Microsoft Research's "Bartok" ahead-of-time compiler work influenced the team.

Duffy made a couple of public presentations and published papers in the ensuing years that indicated he and his colleagues were working on some kind of extensions to Microsoft's C# language. In his new blog post, Duffy elaborated on this, noting that M# (a codename he never uses himself) "should be seen (as) more of a set of extensions to C# -- with minimal breaking changes -- than a completely new language."

Duffy explained that the team made a conscious decision to work from C# as a base, rather than C

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The 404 Throwback: Episode 897 from 9/6/11

The 404 is on holiday until CES, but enjoy this special throwback episode from September 2011 when we learn a valuable lesson to never trust anyone with four gold teeth.



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Google's Picasa software backs up photos from PCs to Google+

Auto Backup offers to transfer photos from Mac and Windows machines running Picasa software to Google's social service.

(Credit:screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

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Cthurkey waits dreaming on the dinner table

Beware of the tentacled entree! Cthulhu food tributes invade the Internet, and this edible Elder God looks like it might attack before you can pick up your fork.



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Nokia wins injunction against all HTC devices (in Germany)

(Credit:HTC)

Nokia has won an important injunction in Germany that could see the company put an end to sales of HTC's devices in Germany.

Earlier on Monday, judge Dr. Matthias Zigann of the Munich I Regional Court ruled that Nokia should be awarded an injunction against all HTC Android handsets over an alleged violation of a patent that describes a "method for transferring resource information" via NFC or Bluetooth, FOSS Patents' Florian Mueller reported. The Nokia patent is decidedly broad in its brief description, but the magistrate ruled HTC's devices were enough of an alleged infringement that it warranted a ruling for Nokia.

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The ruling puts HTC in a bad situation in Germany. Unless the company can win a chance to appeal the ruling, Nokia can enforce the injunction and stop all sale of HTC devices. What's more, the injunction is permanent, meaning an eventual Nokia victory could see HTC's allegedly infringing devices kept off store shelves forever.

Nokia presents a potentially worrisome proposition to HTC and all other Android vendors. The patent is essentially describing a way for handset makers to transfer data wirelessly between devices. And although it doesn't include Wi-Fi, near-field communication and Bluetooth have become staples in Android handsets.

Nokia and HTC have been waging a patent battle for quite some time, and earlier this month, the Lumia maker won another case against HTC. That case would have required HTC to remove devices from store shelves, but the company made a modification that sidestepped the alleged infringement. Whether it can do the same this time around is unknown.

The Nokia-HTC news comes just after reports out of Korea say that Apple and Samsung are reportedly attempting to come to terms over their ongoing patent disputes. If successful, the companies could sign a cross-licensing deal and Apple would be awarded a sum for alleged Samsung infringements.

Topics: Miscellaneous, Nokia Tags: Apple, Nokia, HTC, Samsung, patents

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Research shows eye-reflections in photos could be used to identify criminals

Did you ever watch CSI's tech boffins zoom into a photo, grab the reflection in someone's eye, and through processing magic generate a full facial image of the wanted criminal? If, like us, you rolled your eyes at the program's "Hollywood" technology, then maybe you did so too soon (again). Researchers at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, have effectively done just that. Okay, so the team was using near perfect conditions: a 39-megapixel Hasselblad H2D camera, shooting a subject from one meter away, in perfect lighting, but the results proved the idea is well within the realms of science fact. When looking at a close up of a subject's eye, the team was able to grab an image between 27 to 36 pixels wide by 42 to 56 pixels high showing the face of one of the "bystanders" they had organised to be in the subject's view. The reflected images proved good enough that when volunteers were asked to match the small image with that of the actual bystander, or someone of similar appearance, results came in well above chance averaging between 70- and 84 percent. As well as assisting in criminal investigations, the researchers claim the technique could also yield 3D environments, when images can be taken from both eyes. Of course, real-world application would require similarly optimal conditions, but as technology advances, the researches claim this could be an ever increasing scenario.

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Via: Sky News

Source: Plos One

Tags: eye reflections, photo, research, University of Glasgow Next: Roku player software cracked open temporarily, root now to run XBMC later .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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Time Machines: Casio gets smart at CES 2000

BYJon Turi1 day ago 0

Welcome to Time Machines, where we offer up a selection of mechanical oddities, milestone gadgets and unique inventions to test out your tech-history skills. In the weeks leading up to the biggest gadget show on Earth, we'll be offering a special look at relics from CES' past.



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NSA can reportedly bug computer equipment before it reaches buyers

Don't think that the NSA always has to wait until people are using technology to start snooping on it. Spiegel has obtained documents which claim that the agency's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) group can intercept computer equipment orders and install tracking hardware or software before the shipments even reach their buyers. The division can target a wide array of hardware, too. Another NSA section, ANT, reportedly has a catalog of tools that can install back doors in everything from Cisco and Huawei network systems through to hard drives from most major manufacturers, including Seagate and Western Digital. Some of these bugs can give the NSA "permanent" access, since they're designed to persist if the owner wipes a device's storage or upgrades its firmware.

The leak suggests that the targeted manufacturers aren't aware of what's happening; Cisco and other firms tell Spiegel they don't coordinate with the NSA. These hardware interceptions are also limited in scope next to remote surveillance programs. The agency isn't confirming any specifics, but it maintains that TAO is focused on exploiting foreign networks. Whether or not that's true, the discoveries show that the NSA's surveillance can reach the deepest levels of many networks.

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Via: Gizmodo

Source: Spiegel (1), (2)

Tags: cisco, dell, edwardsnowden, huawei, internet, networking, nsa, seagate, surveillance, tailoredaccessoperations, tao, WesternDigital Next: Time Machines: Casio gets smart at CES 2000 .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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IRL: A look back at the original PlayStation Vita

BYEngadget staff21 hours ago 0

Welcome to IRL, an ongoing feature where we talk about the gadgets, apps and toys we're using in real life and take a second look at products that already got the formal review treatment.


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Defense bill makes US-based Russian satellite monitoring stations 'next to impossible' due to spying fears

The State Department hoped the building of satellite monitoring stations might soften tempers between the US and Russia, which have flared in the wake of asylum for Edward Snowden and arguments over Syrian politcs. Congressional Republicans, the Pentagon and the CIA, on the other hand, had different ideas, suggesting that US-based stations built to support Global Navigation Satellite System (GLONASS) - the Russian equivalent to GPS - could help the country's spying efforts. And now language included in a defense bill signed by President Obama late last week likely marks the end of the project - for now, at least.

An anonymous Republican aide told The New York Times that, "the idea was to make it next to impossible, if not impossible, to do this," essentially removing the State Department from the process as, "they were the ones who caused all the trouble in the first place." The plan, intended to improve GLONASS's accuracy, would require the director of national intelligence and the secretary of defense to assure Congress that the stations wouldn't be used to spy on the US to get the green light.

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Source: The New York Times

Tags: glonass, gps, russia, satellite, spying Next: IRL: A look back at the original PlayStation Vita .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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The best cellphone deals of the week: 12.29.13

BYBilly Steele18 hours ago 0

With Engadget's new tools, you can track price drops on thousands of devices every day, and once a week we feature some of the best deals right here. But act fast! Many of these are limited-time offers, and won't last long.



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Weekly Roundup: 2013 Mac Pro review, judge okays NSA spying and more!

You might say the week is never really done in consumer technology news. Your workweek, however, hopefully draws to a close at some point. This is the Weekly Roundup on Engadget, a quick peek back at the top headlines for the past seven days -- all handpicked by the editors here at the site. Click on through the break, and enjoy.



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Hackers reverse engineer Wii U GamePad to stream from PC

Thought using the Wii U GamePad as a simple PC controller was a neat trick? Try this on for size: a small team of hackers has figured out how to stream PC games to the tablet-esque controller natively, circumventing its host console. The hack was shown this week at the 30th Chaos Communication Congress, where the group revealed how it reverse engineered the GamePad controller. After weaving a complex tale of dumped firmware, decoded video and buggy streams, the team showed a simple drawing app streaming from a laptop to the Wii U GamePad. Impressive? Sure, but the crowd didn't erupt into applause until they booted up a Gamecube emulated session of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker.

Despite some crashes, the demo appeared to be fairly playable -- though the team warns that the available code is aimed primarily at developers. The group eventually plans to build user-friendly tools for Windows and OSX, as well as an Android port designed to allow users to substitute the Wii U GamePad with their own tablets, streaming from the console to the slate of their choice. It's not quite ready to replace your NVIDIA Shield, but the project is brimming with potential. Check out the presentation's slides at the source link below, or read on for a video of the hack in action (the fun starts about 47 minutes in).

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Via: NeoGaf

Source: Libdrc, Slides (Google Drive), 30C3

Tags: Chaos Communication Congress, hacks, nintendo, wii u, wii u gamepad Next: Weekly Roundup: 2013 Mac Pro review, judge okays NSA spying and more!
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Samsung's 110-inch Ultra HDTV is the world's largest, and it goes on sale Monday

Samsung promised at CES last January that it would deliver a 110-inch UHDTV this year, and with just a couple of days left to spare here it is. Apparently rolling out in China, the Middle East and a few European countries first, there's no word on price (the 85-inch version that launched earlier this year had a $40K pricetag attached when it launched), but can you really put a price on a TV that's bigger than a king-size bed? That's right, at 2.6-meters by 1.8-meters there's more than enough room for well-heeled VIPs or employees of large companies and government agencies (the target market for the S9110) to catch some z's on it -- and bring a few friends. It's available for custom orders just before we see the new generation of Ultra HD (including a 105-inch curved model) at CES 2014 next week, although most of us will be looking for TVs that actually fit inside our living room.

Update: Even though the set is custom order only, an Associated Press report puts the price at about $150,000 -- anyone want to get a group order going?.



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How would you change Canon's EOS-1D X?

A $7,000 camera may only share a border with the mainstream gadgets we normally discuss on How Would You Change, but it's one that's worth bending a rule to discuss here. In the hands of our reviewer, we learned that Canon's EOS-1D X wasn't compelling enough to convince 1Ds Mk. III users to switch, but when it comes to such luxurious cameras, the 5D Mark III was the better and cheaper choice overall. That was his finding, at least -- but what about you all? Share your experiences shooting with this gear in our forum discussion. And for a primer on how to get started, check out our guide to the new Engadget.

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Tags: canon, EOS, EOS-1D X, How Would You Change, HWYC Next: Samsung's 110-inch Ultra HDTV is the world's largest, and it goes on sale Monday
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Samsung's new chip could put 4GB of memory in your next smartphone

Think the 3GB of RAM in the Galaxy Note 3 was a lot? Samsung was only getting started. The company has just unveiled the first 8-gigabit (1GB) low-power DDR4 memory chip, which could lead to 4GB of RAM in a multi-layered, mobile-sized package. Moving to the higher-bandwidth (3.1Gbps) DDR standard should also provide a hefty 50 percent speed boost over existing DDR3-based chips, even though the new silicon uses 40 percent less power than its ancestors. Samsung is only promising mass production of the new RAM sometime in 2014, but it's already clear about the target audience. The technology will go into laptops, smartphones and tablets with Ultra HD displays, where additional memory will be crucial for powering all those extra pixels.

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Source: Samsung Tomorrow Global

Tags: 20nm, 20nm-class, laptop, lpddr4, memory, mobilepostcross, ram, samsung, smartphone, tablet Next: How would you change Canon's EOS-1D X? .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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Google, Audi to announce in-car Android plans next week, says WSJ

Google has big plans to put Android in cars, and will start by announcing a tie-up with Audi at CES 2014 next week, according to the WSJ. Its sources said that Android will power an in-car entertainment system for that automaker, which will run on hardware built directly into the car rather than your smartphone. The collaboration will also involve NVIDIA, and such a system would give you access to the same navigation, entertainment and communication functions available on your handheld device. Audi recently announced LTE for select models, and a recent report from EE Times suggested that Google's had the automotive space squarely in its sights since Apple announced its iOS in the Car initiative supported by BMW, Daimler and others. We'll remain skeptical until we see a product demo, but it would be more surprising if Big G didn't do something with car companies to stymie its arch-foe.

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Source: WSJ

Tags: Android, Audi, automobile, car, google, In-carEntertainment, Integration, sprint Next: Samsung's new chip could put 4GB of memory in your next smartphone .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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LG makes Knock a standard feature, update coming for L Series II models

LG first rolled out its Knock feature on the G2 earlier this year, but now that item will become a standard feature on future handsets. If you'll recall, the power button on that smartphone is situated around back, so Knock allows users to turn the unit on by double tapping on the screen. In addition to those upcoming devices, the outfit will add Knock to existing L Series II gadgets via a maintenance release update starting next month. Of course, specific availability will depend on region and carrier, so you might have to wait a bit longer for the add-on.

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Source: LG

Tags: feature, knock, lg, mobilepostcross, software, update Next: Google, Audi to announce in-car Android plans next week, says WSJ .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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French Uber users face 15-minute delay starting next year

To the surprise of virtually everyone in France, the government has just passed a law requiring car services like Uber to wait 15 minutes before picking up passengers. The bill is designed to help regular taxi drivers, who feel threatened by recently introduced companies like Uber, SnapCar and LeCab. Cabbies in the Gallic nation require formidable time and expense to get their permits and see the new services -- which lack such onerous requirements -- as direct competitors. The legislation managed to pass through parliament despite reservations from the French competition authority, which deemed it ill-thought-out. Meanwhile, a spokesman for the private services called the new law "absurd, unjust and incomprehensible" and vowed to attack it. One SnapCar rep even told TechCrunch it would never leave a customer on a rainy street, and pointing to the French Minister responsible, said "what would Manuel Valls want for his mother?"

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Liberation

Tags: cabs, CarService, CarSharing, France, legislation, Taxis, Uber Next: LG makes Knock a standard feature, update coming for L Series II models .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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Huawei Ascend Mate 2 snapped with its predecessor, said to keep 720p panel

While there's been no reason to doubt whispers of a follow-up to Huawei's Ascend Mate, pictures of the super-sized device have so far been unflattering. Today, however, a Mate 2-toting source has sent some snaps to our friends at Engadget Chinese, including a few family photos with the original Mate. Barring a few aesthetic changes and a slightly thinner profile, the Mate 2 bears a similar square form factor to its older brother. Aside from learning of its 13-megapixel main camera, the source reiterates specs we've heard already: a 1.6GHz quad-core processor, 16GB of internal storage, 2 gigs of RAM and Android 4.2.2 with a coating of Emotion UI. It is claimed, however, that the next-gen Mate's display has not been upgraded as previously thought, so we're in for the same 6.1-inch 720p panel as before. That could make for an anticlimactic first impression, and if Huawei's going to make its Mate family announcements a CES tradition, then disappointment is just around the corner.Huawei Ascend Mate 2 leaked photos

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The man behind NYT Magazine's gorgeous covers is headed to Apple

You may not know the name Arem Duplessis, but you've no doubt seen his work on the cover of The New York Times Magazine in the past 10 years. As design director at NYT Mag, he crafted some of the most stunning work in the publication's history -- examples seen above -- and he's just been hired away from his decade-long post. And that's what's especially interesting: he's heading to Apple as a creative director.

In a brief interview with Mediabistro, Duplessis says part of what he'll do at Apple is assist the internal marketing team (the folks responsible for evangelizing to Apple employees on the company's own products). No doubt those internal memos will have extra attention to alignment and contrasting colors! The ambiguity of his title means he'll also have other responsibilities, and we're gonna go all the way crazy and wager that Apple wouldn't waste Duplessis' eye for design solely on internal marketing.



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Tech's biggest misfires of 2013

You can't win 'em all. The adage certainly holds in the fast-paced world of technology, where one small slip can put a damper on your entire year. Every year, among all of the celebrations of top gadgets and big news stories, we like to take a moment to acknowledge the other side of things. This time out, it's a pretty diverse list, from flubbed Kickstarter launches to massive governmental privacy breaches and yet another really lousy year for one smartphone manufacturer. But don't worry everyone; the year 2013 is nearly over.

Microsoft gets DRM-happy with the Xbox One



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FAA selects six sites for drone testing because flying robots are our future

One day, drones will be flying overhead... and it will be normal. But, right now, concern over the safety of allowing unmanned aircraft to roam freely in our airspace outweighs their groovy future potential. Which is why the FAA today, following a mandate by Congress, has selected six test sites around the US for the purpose of studying UAS (unmanned aircraft) and eventually integrating them safely into our heavily trafficked skies. Research on UAS will now be carried out at facilities operated by The University of Alaska, Texas A&M University, the state of Nevada (an obvious choice, really), North Dakota's Department of Commerce, New York's Griffiss International Airport and Virginia Tech -- all chosen for their geographical and climatic diversity.

Each partner will carry out testing in key research areas highlighted by the FAA: sense and avoid, command and control, ground control station standards and human factors, airworthiness, lost link procedures and interface with air traffic control. The results of which will go towards developing regulations for "commercial and civil use" (yes, you will one day own and operate a drone). But just because the FAA's given a greenlight to further UAS testing, that doesn't mean you'll see drones whizzing about in our skies anytime soon. The agency's stressed that this is just a test and not an invitation to tempt fate in our national airspace system.

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Tags: drones, FAA, research, UAS, UAV Next: Tech's biggest misfires of 2013 .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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Archos previews connected home, health monitoring devices ahead of CES


Archos looks to be getting in on the New Year's resolutions a bit early. The company clearly couldn't wait for CES to spill the beans on its 2014 lineup -- at least so far as connected devices are concerned. The device maker wants to make you a part of its internet of things, previewing a slew of devices, including an activity tracker, scale, blood pressure monitor, weather station and tablet. There is, predictably, not a whole heck of a lot of information on any of the products -- in fact, the company's managed to shove mentions of all of the above into a single press release issued a little more than a week out from the big Vegas event. Archos is collectively referring to the lineup as its "connected objects" -- devices that are monitorable in real-time via Android and iOS apps.

There's not much to say about the 7-inch Smart Home Tablet, at the moment. The company's positioning the Android device as a "gateway" to connected home actions, like turning on lights and recording video with a mini-cam when a motion sensor is triggered. CES will also see the debut of a new Weather Station from Archos, offering up indoor and outdoor temperature, humidity, CO2, pressure and other readings, along with national and historic levels for comparison. The company's Connected Self app, meanwhile, was built to work with a handful of new health devices. The list includes a connected scale that tracks body fat, an activity tracker that measures footsteps and burned calories and a blood pressure monitor that comes with an irregular heartbeat detector.

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Tags: activity monitor, archos, blood pressure, ces2014, Smart Home Table, weather station Next: FAA selects six sites for drone testing because flying robots are our future .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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Archos will debut multiple 'pebble-like' smartwatches at CES, starting at less than $50

There's one more interesting nugget in today's jam-packed Archos press release. Alongside the home tablet, scale, weather system, activity monitor, et al. is a very brief mention of a smartwatch -- a "selection of" smartwatches, actually. There's not much info here, save for the fact that at least one of the wearables will hit an under-$50 price point. The company is also apparently comparing the iOS/Android-compatible line to a familiar wearable, referring to it as "pebble-like" in the included press material (lower case, mind). If we had to venture a guess, we'd say the similarity comes from what looks to be an e-ink or e-ink-like display, but it looks like we're going to have to jump on a plane to Vegas to find out for sure.

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Tags: archos, ces2014, smartwatch, watch Next: FAA selects six sites for drone testing because flying robots are our future .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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CrunchWeek 2013 In Review: Bitcoin’s Big Rise, Edward Snowden And The NSA

2013 CrunchYear
It’s the end of the year, which is always a time for reflection — auld lang syne and all that jazz. So for the next couple of weeks, CrunchWeek, the show that brings a few TechCrunch writers together to dish about the hottest tech stories of the past seven days, is actually going to be more like a CrunchYear. We’ll be talking about the biggest stories that really defined the state of the tech world in 2013.

In this first installment of our two-part year in review, Leena Rao, Ryan Lawler and I talk about the meteoric rise of Bitcoin, the digital currency based on an open source software protocol that seemed to capture the world’s attention over the course of the year as it hit staggeringly high valuations (amid lots of price volatility) and secured big-name supporters, and the revelations leaked in June by previously-unknown whistleblower Edward Snowden that the National Security Administration has been spying on the digital habits of millions of Americans — with the help of some of the tech industry’s biggest and most trusted companies.



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How Snapchat Became The Breakout Consumer Product Of 2013

Editor’s Note: Semil Shah works on product for Swell, is a TechCrunch columnist, and an investor. He blogs at Haywire, and you can follow him on Twitter at 

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“Steve Jobs” Biographer Puts Draft Of New Book Online To Crowdsource Ideas

One of the most successful authors in the world, Walter Isaacson, is seeking the wisdom of the crowds for his new book about the technology industry’s major inventors.

Crowdsourcing books isn’t new, but it is, as far I as can tell, the first time a writer of Isaacson’s caliber has opened up the writing process in such a way. In an email interview, Isaacson gave me some more detail on how it’s working. “It has been surprisingly helpful. I have made dozens of factual changes, plus I have sketched out a few more substantive additions I plan to make in the final version,” he said.

Though only two chapters are online, it’s already gotten attention from an impressive group. Stanford Professor of Political Theory Rob Reich thought the role of government in funding the early Internet got short shrift, and recommended Isaacson give it some attention. Isaacson responded in kind, “Yes, I will add a section on govt research at MIT, Stanford, Lincoln Lab, BBN, SRI, etc. Very important. I’m a fan of Leslie Berlin and her Noyce bio is superb.”

In a spicier example, Stewart Brand, an early pioneer of online forums, disputed Isaacson’s retelling of his own history. The two had a lively exchange, with both agreeing to moderate their understanding of the events.

As the former CEO of CNN and Managing editor of Time, Isaacson is no stranger to soliciting feedback. “In the past, I have sent parts of my drafts around to people I knew,” he told me. “By using the Internet, I can now solicit comments and corrections from people I don’t know.”

Despite the fanfare of the Internet’s crowdsourcing potential, there’s really no quality and widespread tools for soliciting feedback. One of the websites he’s experimenting with, Medium, was never designed to help authors co-write books. Twitter co-founder Evan Williams began the blogging platform to shift our daily reading habits and inspire users to tell their most interesting ideas.

Unlike other news sites, however, Medium lets users comment in-line, which makes it a more suitable place for targeted feedback. If the experiment continues to be a success, Isaacson will not only have proved that many authors should crowdsource their works, but will have given Medium an extraordinary new purpose.

Medium, in fact, has a section for “book excerpts,” but it might take an author with some buzz to make the idea more mainstream among authors.

Of course, crowdsourcing won’t work for every book. Nick Bilton’s exposĆ© on the origins of Twitter revealed a handful of sordid details; he didn’t lend out any early copies because the launch made news. Additionally, as the CEO of the Aspen Institute, Isaacson has an elite circle of supporters. Even if it works for him, it might not work for newbies.

It’s an ongoing experiment. The web has a pretty good track record of making industries, especially knowledge industries, more transparent and participatory. If I were a betting man, I’d say Isaacson is riding the cusp of what will eventually be a staple of modern authorship.

If you’re a fan of technology or Isaacson’s past work, you can read the drafts here.



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What Makes Girls Fall In Love With Computers And Code?

1883#comic

Feature image by Zach Weiner via Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

The perennial discussion about women in technology is in high gear once again, this time after remarks made by Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham about the relative dearth of female tech founders and the perks of starting to code at a young age in an interview with The Information were picked up by Valleywag.

Discussions about career, gender and age with a dash of the inherent class associations that often accompany them are always dicey topics, so it makes sense that this interview hit a nerve. For his part, Graham (who, it should be mentioned, in interviews with TechCrunch has always expressed a very strong interest in funding more female founders and voiced pride in shifting the gender ratio in Y Combinator’s founder classes) says he’s been misquoted and misunderstood, and there are some very eloquent arguments being made that at least some of the pile-on seems to be unwarranted. That said, people on all sides of the debate are making good points, and will probably continue to do so for a while.

The real upshot of all this may be that more people are talking about solutions to the inequalities in tech. Because putting the controversy aside, there is one thing that isn’t really up for debate: There are still far fewer females in the technology industry than there are men. As Union Square Ventures’ Fred Wilson wrote in a very good blog post this morning,

“The brouhaha that

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Facebook’s Cutesy Annual Report To Partners Reveals First Country-By-Country Mobile Stats

TechCrunch has obtained never before published metrics showing Facebook’s international growth. Facebook sent some partners a playfully illustrated eMagazine called The Annual, but I’ve acquired a copy from a source and the stats inside are serious business. The report divulges user counts for some key international markets like Germany, which now has 25 million users, and 18 million mobile users.

Previously, Facebook had only shared combined web and mobile user counts by multi-country region, and its mobile user counts as global totals. The problem is that hides what parts of the world are driving its mobile growth, which has brought it to a total of 874 million monthly mobile users and 507 million daily mobile users as of September 2013, out of a total 1.19 billion month user across all devices.

So for several quarters I called for Facebook to release more detailed international mobile stats. The company partly acquiesced in August, providing me with specific stats for the US and UK, seen in the graph below.



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SD Cards Aren’t As Secure As We Think

The hardware hacker Bunnie Huang gave a talk at the Chaos Compute Club Congress where he offered some good news and some bad news. The good news? SD cards contain powerful, handy micro controllers that are useful to hackers and hobbyists. The bad news? SD cards are woefully insecure.

In a detailed and readable post, Huang describes the exact problems with Flash memory. In order to reduce the price and increase the storage space, engineers have to fight a never-ending form of internal entropy that slowly but surely scrambles the data on every Flash drive.

Huang writes:

Flash memory is really cheap. So cheap, in fact, that it’s too good to be true. In reality, all flash memory is riddled with defects — without exception. The illusion of a contiguous, reliable storage media is crafted through sophisticated error correction and bad block management functions. This is the result of a constant arms race between the engineers and mother nature; with every fabrication process shrink, memory becomes cheaper but more unreliable. Likewise, with every generation, the engineers come up with more sophisticated and complicated algorithms to compensate for mother nature’s propensity for entropy and randomness at the atomic scale.

To take up arms against these errors, SD cards are essentially over-engineered to ensure an acceptable level of data retention. They also contain firmware that can, for example, change the visible available space on the card without changing the actual available space. This means you could sell a 2GB card as a 4GB card – your computer wouldn’t notice a difference until it started filling up that fake space. You can, incidentally, check your cards with this tool.

Here’s the worse news: because these cards contain firmware, this firmware can be updated. Huang reports that most manufacturers leave this update feature unsecured. In other words, don’t ever assume a Flash device is empty after you wipe its contents. For example, the card could make a copy of the contents in a hidden memory area or it could run malicious software while idle.

And the good news: Huang also notes that these cards could be reprogrammed to become Arduino-esque open source microcontroller and memory systems. “An Arduino, with its 8-bit 16 MHz microcontroller, will set you back around $20. A microSD card with several gigabytes of memory and a microcontroller with several times the performance could be purchased for a fraction of the price,” he writes.

So, in short, destroy your SD cards if you have any dirty info on them and keep your eyes peeled for ultra-small, ultra-fast Arduino hacks.



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Marco Polo Is A Simple App For Sharing Your Location With Selected Friends

A smartphone app called Marco Polo aims to make it easier for users to find and meet up with their friends.

The basic mechanic of the app is pretty straightforward, and is indeed reminiscent of the children’s game Marco Polo. Instead of text messaging back-and-forth with your friends to find out where they are, you hit the “Marco” button to share a pin showing your location. Then the app shows you a list of your friends, and you choose who to share it with. (You can also add an image or a message to the pin.)

Once other users get notified about your location, they have the option to share their location with you. And if someone hadn’t downloaded the app, you can still send them a link to your location.

There are, of course, many other location-sharing apps, and a broader category of similar apps under the horrendous buzzword “SoLoMo”. However, I haven’t seen anything that works exactly the way Marco Polo does.

Co-founder Aneel Ranadive said via email that the app “is more low key and less formal than texting, and less invasive than, say, turning on Apple’s Find My Friends or broadcasting to your entire network on Foursquare or Facebook.” Unlike Find My Friends, you’re not sharing your location on a persistent basis, and unlike Foursquare, you choose who you share with each time. (I’ve certainly had moments where I realized that I didn’t really want to share a given location with someone — but I didn’t have the guts to unfriend them on Foursquare, so I just didn’t bother sharing at all.) He also pitched the app as part of a trend of people wanting to share more privately, for example with Snapchat.

(Update: A couple of people also brought up Glympse, which may have a similar aim but achieves it in a different away; as I understand it, you continually share your location for a set period of time.)

The app actually represents a shift for the startup, which was previously known as Pinchit, and which started out as a daily deals site with seed funding from investor (and “Six Californias” advocate) Tim Draper, Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin, and others.

Marco Polo has actually been available for iOS and Android for a little while now, but Ranadive said it’s only with the most recent update that the team is trying to go beyond a small group of testers.

I tried the app out myself. None of my close friends are on it, so it didn’t have much utility in terms of actually meeting up, but it was still fun to see where Ranadive was at a given moment. And it’s as simple and “low friction” as he said, with only a couple of taps needed to share your location.

If you’re interested in trying it out for yourself, you can download the app here.



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Reason #152 Virtual Reality Is Awesome: Personal Movie Theaters Without The Awful Other People

I love going to the movie theater. Seriously, I love it.

I just hate all the other people that go.

Quite early on, my parents taught me that there was but one rule for going to the theater: silence is golden. If the theater was a moviegoer’s church, talking or otherwise ruining the experience for others was sin. If I talked, we’d leave. Simple as that.

Sometime in the past few years, though, it’s like people have forgotten how to do the movie theater.

I’ve tried going at different times. I’ve tried going to different theaters. No matter what I do, no matter where I go, the shitty moviegoers follow. They talk. They crack jokes that only their friends laugh at. They muck with their phones, blinding everyone in the rows behind them so they can blast out a Facebook update about being at the movies that literally no one will care about.

I went to 10 movies this year; 9 out of 10 had at least one person who happily paid their $12 just to go in and crap on the movie for everyone else. I’ve given up.

But this

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New Leaks Detail How The NSA’s ‘TAO’ And ‘ANT’ Units Spy On Devices, Global Networks

New leaks emerged today in Germany’s Der Spiegel newspaper about the scope of electronic surveillance conducted by the United States’ National Security Agency.

In short, it looks like the agency has even more access to personal data than we already thought.

Der Spiegel says it has obtained documents detailing the depth and breadth of access that the Tailored Access Operations (TAO) unit, an elite group within the NSA that’s reportedly tasked with gaining access to foreign computer systems in the name of protecting national security, now has when obtaining data.

The paper wrote:

“According to internal NSA documents viewed by Spiegel, these on-call digital plumbers are involved in many sensitive operations conducted by American intelligence agencies… The documents reveal just how diversified the tools at TAO’s disposal have become — and also how it exploits the technical weaknesses of the IT industry, from Microsoft to Cisco and Huawei, to carry out its discreet and efficient attacks.”

Also according to Spiegel, the NSA has created a division called ‘ANT’ which has compiled information about specific hacking methods for everything from high-end networking devices to consumer-grade electronics:

“A document viewed by Spiegel resembling a product catalog reveals that an NSA division called ANT has burrowed its way into nearly all the security architecture made by the major players in the industry — including American global market leader Cisco and its Chinese competitor Huawei, but also producers of mass-market goods, such as US computer-maker Dell.

These NSA agents, who specialize in secret back doors, are able to keep an eye on all levels of our digital lives — from computing centers to individual computers, from laptops to mobile phones. For nearly every lock, ANT seems to have a key in its toolbox. And no matter what walls companies erect, the NSA’s specialists seem already to have gotten past them.

This, at least, is the impression gained from flipping through the 50-page document. The list reads like a mail-order catalog, one from which other NSA employees can order technologies from the ANT division for tapping their targets’ data. The catalog even lists the prices for these electronic break-in tools, with costs ranging from free to $250,000.”

You can read the entire coverage at Spiegel here and here.



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Mophie’s Powerstation XL Packs In The Power For Extended Time Away From Outlets

Our devices have a never-ending hunger for power – it’s their single greatest failing, in a time when they can do incredible things but still only last around a day of solid use in the best-case scenario. But Mophie has made a name for itself providing extra juice for your devices, and now they’ve got a new Powerstation XL model that packs a crazy 12,000 mAh, which can charge some smartphones up to eight times over.

Pros:

Battery lasts and lastsIntelligent amperage for less power wastageTwo ports for charging

Cons:

PriceA bit on the bulky side

Mophie’s Powerstation XL isn’t reinventing the wheel, it’s just making the wheel a lot bigger. Even design-wise, it resembles previous Mophie power pack devices, with a rubberized black top and bottom ‘sandwiching’ a silver wraparound rim. A button on the side will light up an LED indicator to tell you how much juice is remaining (to the nearest quarter), and two USB 2.0 ports on the top can charge up to two devices simultaneously, while a micro USB input is used to fill it back up once it’s empty.

The sandwich look is simple, good and a nice fit with Apple products, with which I’m generally using the Mophie Powerstation XL. Plus, the whole thing feels terrifically well-built, and you can imagine that if you pop the lid, it’ll be tightly packed edge to edge with battery cell units. Mophie’s backup batteries feel like they can survive a fall, which is more than you can say for a lot of the lower-priced models it competes with.

And the Mophie Powerstation XL also works as advertised. I used the partial charge it came with to fully reenergize a Nexus 5, HTC One and Nvidia Shield before it exhausted itself, and subsequent charges have managed to serve up multiple charges to my iPhone 5 while also topping up an iPad Air on the run. Plus, in terms of charge retention, you can easily have the XL in a bag for days without it losing a single dot of its energy meter to dissipation.

Mophie does good retention, and good overall life of the bank itself, which is why they can get away with asking for $130 for a backup battery and someone like IOgear charges a lot less. The XL is brand new, so I haven’t had the opportunity to test its longevity yet, but the Powerstation Pro I’ve had now for a couple of years still seems not to be noticeably diminished vs. when I first bought it.

The bottom line is that if you need serious backup juice in a relatively small package that’s bound to be reliable, Mophie’s latest delivers. It’d be great if someone made a smartphone that eliminated the need for such a thing, but until then, at least there’s the Powerstation XL.



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Fly Or Die: Microsoft Xbox One

Fly or Die

Microsoft’s Xbox One is off to a great start, launching with cable TV control, bumped up graphics, and an all-new Kinect.

But is upgrading worth it?

Our own Greg Kumparak has said in his review that it’s a tough upgrade from the Xbox 360, after customers have grown accustomed to taking such huge technological leaps during earlier generational transitions. And John Biggs isn’t thrilled with the early titles available at launch.

Still, it’s hard not to be excited about the live TV control, and the speed with which you can switch between gameplay and television. If only the voice-control feature were a bit more reliable.

In the end, we recommend waiting a year or so for the $499 price to come down a bit, but eventually most gamers will want to make the transition.

Plenty already have.



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New Report Shows That Most Of China’s Gamers Are Still Playing On PCs, Not Mobile

A new report from China’s GPC (link via Google Translate), an industry group for game publishers, shows that China’s video game industry is now worth 83.17 billion RMB (or $13 billion), a 40% increase over the past 12 months (h/t Games In Asia). While the growth is not surprising, the fact that most of that revenue came from PC-based games may be, especially considering the amount of attention that has been focused on the rise of mobile in China.

Most of this year’s revenue, 64.5% or about $8.7 billion, was generated through client-based PC games. Browser games took in a comparatively low $2 billion, while mobile games earned just $1.8 billion. Social games–which many developers depend on to spread the word about their products–earned less than $1 billion. As Games In Asia notes, most browser games can’t be played easily on mobile devices, so these figures mean that PC games made up more than 80% of revenue earned by China’s gaming industry in 2013.

A lot of focus has been placed on the rise of China’s mobile gamers. For example, Tencent gave mobile developers a potentially lucrative outlet when it launched messaging app WeChat’s highly anticipated gaming platform. Several China-focused mobile game companies have also recently picked up significant funding. These include Chukong, one of China’s largest mobile game developers, which recently raised a $50 million Series D led by New Horizon Capital, bringing its total funding to date to an impressive $83 million (its existing investors include GGV Capital, Sequoia Capital’s China fund, Disney’s Steamboat Ventures and Northern light). Another mobile game developer in China that recently received funding is Beijing-based Yodo1, which announced a $11 million round from GGV Capital earlier this month.

Developers are busy figuring out how to cope with the challenges that come with distributing and monetizing mobile games in order to take advantage of China’s rapidly increasing smartphone penetration, and they have good reason to. There are more than 500 million Android and iOS devices in China, according to top analytics firm Umeng, and that number is expected to grow to 800 million next year, and top-grossing Android games can make $5 million to $10 million per month.

Smartphone penetration is growing rapidly in Asia and, as in other markets, most of the time players spend in-app are on games. As a result, many developers have focused on HTML5 to help them develop casual games that can be played on different mobile OSes, as well as figuring out a distribution strategy for China’s highly fragmented app marketplace. Developers shouldn’t ignore PC gamers. But the report from GDC shows that game developers who want to be profitable should consider developing a multi-channel strategy, too.

Another nugget of insight from the report is that even though the list of top developers in China is still dominated by foreign companies like Electronic Arts, Gameloft and Glu, domestic game companies are starting to take a bigger chunk of revenue–$7.8 billion to be exact, or a 30% increase year-over-year.

Image by Kai Hendry on Flickr



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Web App Searchlet Lets You Perform Multiple Searches Without Opening A Gazillion Tabs

At any given moment during my working day, I have browser tabs open for my email account, Feedly, TechCrunch, WordPress, Convo, Twitter, Google Calendar, Reddit, Pinterest and Facebook. That’s in addition to all the sites I am using for research (or to procrastinate) and desktop apps like Skype and Spotify. As a result of tab overload, and my ever-dwindling supply of brain cells, I often suffer from Google Amnesia. Searchlet won’t give me back the bits of my brain I have already lost, but the handy Web app will increase my productivity by making searches a lot easier.

To use Searchlet, all you need to do is install it onto your bookmarks bar. When you highlight a term and click on your Searchlet button, a sidebar slides into the left of your browser page and shows you results from four online references: Google, Wikipedia, Google News and open content dictionary Wiktionary. The sidebar is unobtrusive and fast. Its results refresh when you highlight new terms and it disappears as soon as you close it.

Creators Mark Fazzini and Spencer Simonsen met while they were both undergraduates at the University of Florida and collaborated on several projects before getting their degrees, including a mobile deals platform and an online music community. Fazzini’s background is in technology sales and the financial services industry, while Simonsen is a web programmer and developer currently working at LinkedIn. Searchlet is the first product from Spin Labs, which the two launched to “create innovative web products for businesses and consumers.”

Searchlet is handy for all Internet users who want to increase their productivity (or just keep their browser tabs manageable), but I think it’s especially useful for students, researchers and easily distracted information junkies. Fazzini says the next version of Searchlet, which will be released in late January, will include results from sites like Google Images, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn (I am excited about seeing results from Google Images in the Searchlet sidebar because that means I will be able to use it as a visual dictionary when reading Chinese-language sites). A mobile version is also in the works.

“A few months ago, Spencer was reading one of his favorite tech blogs and noticed that he opened seven different tabs just to search different terms and concepts on Google and Wikipedia. After getting very anxious about the number of tabs that were open (like most of us do), he thought about how nice it would be to get the relevant information he was looking for, right there on the page,” Fazzini told me by email.

“Our goal is to enhance the online web browsing experience for everyone, by adding an additional layer which allows you to get the information you need within a few short seconds,” he adds. “Not only does this enhance the online web browsing experience and make users more productive, but having a tool like Searchlet at your fingertips can increase a user’s impulse to gather new knowledge dramatically.” 

The duo claims that Searchlet can increase search speeds by up to 86%, a figure that they arrived at base on initial testing that looked at how long it took a user to highlight text, open up a new tab and then navigate to Google, Wikipedia, Google News or Wiktionary to perform a search, a process they found took about 10 to 15 seconds for each site. Using Searchlet reduced that time to about four to six seconds.

“We concluded that searching all four sources (Google, Wikipedia, News, Dictionary) by hand takes around 50 seconds on average and with Searchlet it only takes six. This is how we found Searchlet to be around 86% faster than searching by hand,” Fazzini explains.

On the monetization side, Fazzini says Searchlet can potentially earn revenue through advertising, partnerships and premium resources, but the startup’s current focus is getting Searchlet on as many bookmark bars as possible in order to improve its functionality. To start using Searchlet, visit its site and drag the button onto your bookmark bar.



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Meet Egg, A Smart Cat Toy That’s A Real Companion For Your Kitten

Next StoryWeb App Searchlet Lets You Perform Multiple Searches Without Opening A Gazillion Tabs

Keeping cats interested in any one toy for any length of time can be difficult, at least in my experience. Plus, most of them require a lot of manual input on the owner’s part. The Egg is a Kickstarter project that aims to keep things interesting for the cat, and save energy for the owner, with a smart toy that moves on its own and can be programmed via a laptop.

The Egg looks like its namesake, but contained within its plastic enclosure, it holds an offset weight and gearmotor, along with a printed circuit board. The Egg can detect floor type and even obstacles, like a cat’s paw or person’s foot, and rotate its weight using the gearmotor to change direction. The result is a ball that can continuously roll and keep a cat’s interest without any human intervention.

Or, with limited human intervention, I should say. The Egg still needs to be charged up, using a microUSB port on its side, and it can be plugged into a computer to switch it to various interaction modes using a desktop software interface.



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Amazon’s Rough Christmas

Amazon may have had one of its best Cyber Mondays in reported history, but it doesn’t mean that the holiday shopping season went off without a hitch.

The company had some trouble getting all of its orders delivered on time for Christmas, after promising customers the same speedy delivery as usual. Amazon Prime members, in particular, are promised two-day shipping on Prime-eligible products, whether it’s Christmastime or not.

Unfortunately, last-minute shopping and overloads at UPS left Amazon customers waiting by the window on Christmas morning.

To make up for it, Amazon announced last week that they would offer $20 gift cards to customers who didn’t receive their presents on time. UPS is also issuing refunds.

Long story short, Amazon certainly doesn’t want to deal with this (or lose money issuing refunds) again.

It’s been mere weeks since Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos introduced the idea of delivery drones, which would offer half-hour delivery to Prime customers. We’ll clearly have to wait a while for this to be fully implemented, but perhaps the drone experts at Amazon are hearing the crack of the whip after this debacle.

For now, Amazon relies on UPS and USPS to deliver packages purchased through the service, which proved difficult this holiday season.

According to the WSJ, UPS originally expected to ship around 7.75 million packages on Monday, the 23rd. Though it’s unclear how many packages actually went through UPS systems that day, the company did admit that “the volume of air packages in its system had exceeded its capacity.”

Amazon is clearly on the road to taking shipping into its own hands. Setting aside delivery drones, the company has implemented Sunday delivery in big cities like New York and San Francisco, thanks to the U.S. government, with rollouts expected in Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Phoenix.

Plus, Amazon already has its own mini-fleet of delivery trucks and contractors for its AmazonFresh service, which delivers fresh produce and other foods on a same-day or next-day basis in Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

It’s simply a matter of time before Amazon controls delivery entirely, perhaps even in time to avoid this situation next Christmas. Maybe that’s Bezos’ New Years Resolution?



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The Twitter NYSE Honeymoon Is Over As Stock Price Takes Another Nosedive

Today at market opening, Twitter shares (NYSE:TWTR) dropped once again. Shares were at $60.27, down 5.46 percent compared to Friday’s closing price of $63.75. This nosedive marks the end of the honeymoon between Twitter and the NYSE as many analysts stated that shares are overpriced. Until now, the stock held strong amid those reports, but that seems to be coming to an end.

It is not the first drop as shares were already down 13 percent on Friday, shaving $5 billion off Twitter’s market capitalization. It was a big correction of Thursday’s good performance — on Thursday, shares popped 5 percent for no apparent reason.

Many analysts find that Twitter is an expensive company. With a market cap of $33.6 billion, the company has yet to turn a profit — analysts don’t expect to see any profit before 2015. But this pessimistic trend on the analyst’s side seems to be increasing. On Friday, Macquarie analyst Ben Schachter downgraded Twitter.

According to Bespoke Investment Group, the average price target stands at $44.27, around 37 percent below today’s trading price.

But why is the stock price dropping today? The Twitter IPO was a great sign for the entire tech industry. Private companies saw that the stock market could be friendly again with tech companies — and now, everyone wants to IPO.

When Twitter became a public company on November 7, the company priced its IPO at $26 a share. Shares popped 74 percent on that day. After this very good IPO performance, the stock price has been relatively flat.

Many commented that the IPO was underpriced on purpose to make a big splash on the NYSE. Leaving money on the table was a way to improve the longterm prospects and overall image. Shares are still up around 135 percent compared to the IPO price.

Yet, there was a recent turning point for Twitter shares. When the company introduced retargeted ads in early December, the advertising industry was very enthusiastic. Ads would soon be more relevant thanks to browser cookies and more user information. And shareholders voted with their wallets.

Shares went from $44.95 on December 6 to $73.31 on December 26. It represents a 63.1 percent increase, or a $15.7 billion increase in market capitalization. But it wasn’t sustainable on the long run. This 3-week honeymoon was great while it lasted, but it’s time to come back to reality.

Update at 9:45 am (ET): Shares are now down 7.22 percent to $59.15 a share.



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Flurry Finds Christmas App Download Spike Continues, But Lessens As People Get Used To Smartphones

Mobile analytics and ad platform Flurry has released its annual report on the state of app downloads over Christmas for 2013, and as is usually the case, consumers clearly went crazy for apps this year. Unwrapping a new iPad will inevitably prompt a spike in software downloads, but Flurry is finding that spike is starting to diminish year to year.



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Monday, December 30, 2013

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Yahoo Ends 2013 With No Apps In Apple’s Top 100

Yahoo put of lot of effort and investment toward presenting a new Yahoo to the world in 2013, and a lot of that has hinged on improving its mobile business. There have been significant updates to old apps; over a dozen (out of a total of 28) mobile-related acquisitions to pick up talent, technology and products; and tests for what Yahoo should focus on next. But even as it has managed to grow its mobile audience this year, Yahoo is exiting 2013 on a mobile low note: not one of its apps is in the top 100 chart on the iTunes App Store.

This dearth of winners is a sign of how, despite all the effort, Yahoo has not (yet?) managed to tap into a ‘breakthrough’ app that has remained a perennial favorite, with the downloads to prove it. Nevermind the new-look apps, and the out with the old, in with the new logo: Yahoo! remains Yahoo!

As a point of comparison, consider how other app publishers are faring in Apple’s top 100: Google has five apps (Google Search, Google Maps, Gmail, YouTube and Chrome). Facebook has three (Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Instagram). Twitter has two (Twitter and Vine). And a number of companies like Microsoft (Skype), Netflix, Amazon, eBay, Pinterest, Snapchat, Uber — “even fucking Groupon,” as one observer noted to us — have one apiece.

(Tumblr, acquired by Yahoo for $1.1 billion and with its own recent update, also failed to make the cut. According to AppAnnie, it’s currently at No. 110.)

So what’s going on here? You could argue Yahoo has yet to tap into a blockbuster on the platform it has chosen as its primary one, and as a result is finishing 2013 not with a mobile bang but a whimper.

“It is very clear that whatever they are doing over there is not working because people have spoken and they do not want Yahoo’s apps on their mobile,” our observer notes.

What is worth pointing out, though, are a couple of important caveats, which either will help Yahoo buy time, or may prove to be a strategy in its own right.

While Yahoo may not have a single bona-fide hit on its hands, what it is doing is spreading its bets, doing alright (if not brilliantly) on Android, and continuing to get repeat usage among those who have already downloaded its apps.

Comscore, according to its latest U.S. smartphone usage statistics from earlier this month (October 2013 figures) notes that Yahoo is the third most-popular property behind Google and Facebook on smartphones, with a reach of nearly 78 percent, some 11 percentage points behind Google. Yahoo has managed to hold on to that No. 3 spot for a while now, although its reach has declined compared to the previous few months (eg September: 82.2 percent reach; August: 83.2 percent).

Although Yahoo has long been making efforts to streamline its presence on mobile, Yahoo currently has 15 apps in the U.S. App Store (16 if you count Tumblr).

Using App Annie’s historical data, you can see that within individual categories like Weather, News and Sports, Yahoo has been consistent at the top of the rankings, even as its overall standing for each app has fluctuated with spikes around updates. I’ve included the figures on Android where they are available.

Yahoo Mail:

(iOS)



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73% Of U.S. Adults Use Social Networks, Pinterest Passes Twitter In Popularity, Facebook Stays On Top

The U.S. is edging ever closer to social media saturation, with the percentage of adults using multiple social networks to communicate with each other now at 73%, and — partly thanks to the rise of mobile apps — the number of people on multiple networks now at 42%, according to figures out today from the researchers at the Pew Research Center.

Facebook — the world’s largest social network with 1.19 billion users — remains the most popular in the U.S. as well, with 71% of U.S. adults on it. In other words, nearly all adults on any social network at all are using Facebook. That’s four percentage points up from last year’s 67%, Pew notes.

Moving down the ranks, there is a lot more wiggle room for the next-biggest network. LinkedIn — site that bills itself as the “professional” social network focused on networking, job hunting and professional information and news — is hanging on at the number-two social network, with 22% of U.S. adults using it — up 2% on last year. Close on its heels is Pinterest — which has vaulted over Twitter to number-three position with 21% usage.

Twitter — despite the different services that it has launched to increase engagement like Twitter Music other discovery services; and despite the increased attention around its IPO — has only grown by two percentage points to 18%. Hot on its heels is Instagram at 17%.

For these sites, which are constructed in large part around advertising-based business models, critical mass is crucial: you won’t visit a site if no one else is using it.

More to come.



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U.S. Senator Issues Letter To Top 5 Wireless Carriers Urging Kill Switch Adoption

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota has today taken up the battle cry of numerous legislators before her, calling for wireless carriers to enable new anti-theft technology on handsets.

According to the Senator, one-third of robberies involve cell phone theft, resulting in an estimated $30 billion in lost or stolen phones.

That said, Klobuchar has written a letter to the heads of the major wireless carriers, including Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile and U.S. Cellular.

In the letter, she requests an explanations as to why “the most advanced security features” haven’t been provided to consumers.

This comes on the heels of Apple’s iOS 7 launch, which included an Activation Lock feature inside Find My iPhone. This essentially worked as a kill switch, requiring the owners passcode to reactive an account, wipe the device, turn off Find My iPhone, or sign out of iCloud.

The NYT reported last month that Samsung was trying to bring a similar technology to handsets but that it was rejected by carriers.

After all, the carriers make a pretty penny from insurance policies protecting against lost or stolen phones, which has become a huge issue in major cities. Cops have even lovingly given iPhone theft a name: Apple picking.

Meanwhile, carriers have made light of phone theft with stupid commercials. All this while people get hurt.

Here's the full text of Senator Amy Klobuchar's letter:

Dear Messrs. McAdam, Stephenson, Hesse, Legere, and Meyers:

I am writing to express my concern regarding the increase in crimes involving the theft of mobile devices across the country. As a member of the Senate Commerce Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee, I understand that consumers are utilizing more mobile technology and this is spurring growth in our economy. Unfortunately, more and more consumers are also at risk of being targeted by criminals looking to steal cell phones and other devices for illegal resale. I appreciate the work the industry has done in creating a database to keep stolen phones from being reactivated, but more action is needed.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, almost one-in-three robberies involve phone theft and the cost to consumers of lost or stolen phones is more than $30 billion each year. I’ve heard from local law enforcement officials about the continued call for the wireless industry to engage with them further and to adopt “kill switch” technologies on devices. Additionally, state Attorneys General have suggested that wireless carriers have not taken adequate steps to fight cell phone theft.

As Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, I expect wireless carriers to compete against one another to ensure consumers are offered the most advanced security features and offerings. Your five companies are the nation’s leading wireless carriers, collectively serving more than 90 percent of the nation’s wireless subscribers. With that market share comes an obligation to do all you can to utilize technologies available to protect consumers.

While I understand your companies are continuing to work with law enforcement on the stolen cell phone database, it is clear that consumers want and deserve a comprehensive strategy to prevent mobile device thefts. That is why I respectfully request that each of your companies provides my Judiciary Subcommittee detailed information on the following issues by January 9, 2014:



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The XCAR review of 2013: March

by Alex Goy December 28, 2013 12:01 PM PST XCAR Review of 2013: March

Not heard of the Ssangyong Korando before? Check out what we made of it.

The Vauxhall Cascada may have a silly name and Vauxhall may want to steal sales from Audi with it, but we had some fun.

Vauxhall's Cascada: Enough to turn you from Audi?

Ever wanted to drive a rally car? The closest we've come on the road is having a go in the one-of-333 Audi A1 Quattro.

Audi's A1 Quattro is what happens when you let engineers do what they want Tags: xcar

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Supply pinch dogs Microsoft's Surface tablets

Microsoft's Surface Pro 2 and Surface 2 are chronically in short supply. Is this because the new tablets are flying off the shelves or just not reaching the shelves?



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Many consumers in the dark about rising lighting standards

The most commonly used household light bulbs are set to be phased out in just a few days, but a majority of consumers are unaware of the impending changes, according to the 2013 Osram Sylvania Socket Survey.

Conducted at the end of every year since 2008, the Socket Survey polls hundreds of consumers from around the country to help track their opinions on the rapidly changing lighting landscape. This year, Sylvania reports that just 4 in 10 consumers are aware that beginning on January 1st, a sharp rise in efficiency standards will effectively render standard 40- and 60-watt incandescent bulbs obsolete. In accordance with those rising standards, those bulbs will no longer be manufactured or sold in the United States.

When polled about changing lighting options in more general terms, consumers scored much better, with 64% of respondents showing at least some familiarity with the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), the legislation that numbered incandescents' days. A lack of awareness about EISA's next big step on January 1st, however, could mean that in the coming year, consumers looking to replace their burnt out living room lights will be in for a surprise upon arriving at their local hardware store.



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Phone companies say 'no way' to storing phone data for NSA

Phone companies are against an NSA advisory panel recommendation that would have them -- instead of the NSA -- store phone metadata for an extended time, reports The Washington Post.



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Google Street View case headed to court (again)

It's good news, bad news for Google. A federal appeals court agrees to rehear the Street View case but also affirms its earlier ruling that tech giant violated wiretap laws when collecting data for Street View.



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Sunday, December 29, 2013

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This homemade '3D printer' spikes jello shots with infused designs (video)

Barista Bots, one of the most popular attractions at this year's South by Southwest festival in Austin, printed scanned logos, smileys and other shapes atop comped lattes. Thirsty attendees with 20 minutes to spare for the queue walked away with a free coffee and a robot-extruded froth. The novelty will have surely worn off by next year's SXSW, and we think we've stumbled upon the perfect replacement. It was born from a desire to turn otherwise ordinary gelatin shots into an original alcoholic treat -- meet the 3D Jello Printer.

SpritesMods managed to accomplish this feat with a lot of creativity and a few recycled parts. They repurposed the stepper motors from discarded CD-ROM drives to move a syringe along the necessary axes, and used an old ejector mechanism to push down the plunger. An AVR microcontroller stores several different designs, which materialize in tiny jello shots using a cocktail of banana liquor, food coloring and a bit of corn starch to turn the liquid into a gel. SpritesMods is kind enough to help you get started with creating your own. Just dig up some choice e-waste and follow the tutorial -- you'll be mass producing the perfect New Year's Eve consumable in no time.

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Via: Boing Boing

Source: SpritesMods

Tags: 3dprinter, 3dprinters, printer, printers, SpritesMods, video Next: Carrier site helps Americans watch out for data-hungry mobile apps .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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Netflix outage interrupts streaming in US, Canada and Latin America (update: fixed!)

As they do each year, the holidays have brought their usual assortment of family gatherings, overeating and service outages, including one tonight affecting Netflix. We're able to play videos on some of our devices but not others, and users are flooding Twitter with reports that it's out. The official support account tweeted that it's aware of streaming issues on "all devices" throughout the US, Canada and Latin America. There's no word on when service will be restored, but while we keep an eye on

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Internet Archive starts preserving classic game consoles on the web

Many gamers won't load a console emulator for much more than a brief nostalgia kick. The Internet Archive has loftier goals, however. It's expanding its Historical Software Collection to include the free-to-play Console Living Room beta, which recreates classic '70s and '80s systems on the web for the sake of the historical record. The initial library includes hundreds of games for the Astrocade, Atari 2600, Atari 7800, ColecoVision and Magnavox Odyssey. There are gaps in the catalog, and sound isn't working; the CLR isn't yet a match for a conventional software emulator, let alone the real thing. The Internet Archive promises to address both problems in the near future, though, and it shouldn't be long before its collection delivers a complete vintage gaming experience... minus the old-fashioned tube TV.

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Via: Internet Archive Blogs

Source: Console Living Room

Tags: astrocade, atari, atari2600, atari7800, colecovision, console, consolelivingroom, emulate, emulation, emulator, gaming, historicalsoftwarecollection, internet, internetarchive, magnavox, MagnavoxOdyssey, videogames Next: Netflix outage interrupts streaming in US, Canada and Latin America (update: fixed!)
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Official CyanogenMod ROM now available to every Oppo N1

If you've had your Oppo N1 since launch but would rather use anything besides its Android one-off ColorOS, the hardware manufacturer doesn't take it personally. In fact, you'll find a version of CyanogenMod that's tailor-made for the device if you click over to Oppo's forums. Previously, the custom version of Android was already available on a special edition of the N1, and now everyone has access to CyanogenMod's vision of what Google's OS can be: namely, bloat-free and better performing. Because the ROM was built specifically for the device, you won't lose access to the handset's more unique features -- even the rear touch-panel and the swiveling camera lens. The N1 may be a niche phone, but this close relationship with Oppo could get CyanogenMod just a little bit closer to its goal of becoming a mainstream alternative to Android and iOS.

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Via: Android Central

Source: Oppo Forums (official)

Tags: android, coloros, cyanogenmod, cyanogenmodOS, mobile, mobilepostcross, n1, oppo, oppon1 Next: Internet Archive starts preserving classic game consoles on the web
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Nintendo Network stutters under holiday traffic, Pokemon Bank and Transporter delayed

Unwrap a Wii U this holiday season? Apparently, you weren't the only one: the company's Nintendo Network seems to be stumbling over increased traffic. "Players are having trouble setting up Nintendo Network IDs and downloading content in the Nintendo eShop on both Wii U and Nintendo 3DS," Nintendo writes on its US support page. "We truly regret the inconvenience, and wish to reassure everyone that providing a solution is our top priority."

The network issues are sure to be a thorn in the side of new users pursuing the Wii U's requisite updates, not to mention current owners hoping to check out this week's eShop sales. Folks planning to pick up Pokemon Bank and Poke Teleport (a pair of programs designed to allow players to save, store and transfer their pocket monsters between new and old versions of the games) will have to wait too -- both apps have been delayed until the network issues can be resolved. With any luck, that won't take too long, but if you care to nip at Nintendo's heels you'll find the company's official announcement at the source links below.

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Source: Nintendo (1), (2), (3)

Game Informer Tags: 3ds, nintendo, Nintendo Network, Wii U Next: Official CyanogenMod ROM now available to every Oppo N1
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Nokia pulls Here Maps from the App Store, blames iOS 7

In the wake of Maps-gate, Nokia was one of several outfits that rushed to Apple's aid with a navigation app of its very own. A year later, however, and that same offering has been yanked from the App Store before it could send a note to its neighbors. When we asked, Nokia responded with the below quote, saying that iOS 7 harms the user experience of HERE, but users can still access the mobile edition of the service. Which is all well and good, unless you were a big fan of the app's ability to cache offline data.

"We have made the decision to remove our HERE Maps app from the Apple App Store because recent changes to iOS 7 harm the user experience. iPhone users can continue to use the mobile web version of HERE Maps under m.here.com, offering them location needs, such as search, routing, orientation, transit information and more, all completely free of charge."

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Via: Nokia Power User

Source: Indian Express, iTunes (Broken link)

Tags: App Store, apple, Here Maps, iOS, iOS 7, mobilepostcross, nokia, Nokia HERE Next: Nintendo Network stutters under holiday traffic, Pokemon Bank and Transporter delayed
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Tesla Model S software update guards against faulty wiring

Amidst a recent spate of Model S fires, Tesla has upgraded the software on the EV to prevent unsafe charging, according to a tweet from Tesla S owner

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Vidzone brings free music-video streaming to PS4

The PlayStation 4 might not play CDs (yet) and an official YouTube app is still MIA, but that doesn't mean music and music videos are out of reach. Vidzone has finally taken its streaming app into the next generation, and, unlike Music Unlimited, it's free. Much like its previous-gen counterpart, the video application offers concerts, interviews, custom playlists and even crams the PS4's native social-features in for good measure. You can share screenshots of what you're watching to Facebook and Twitter, for instance, and recent activity in the app also populates the "what's new" activity feed on your friends' consoles. Unless you want your Battlefield 4 clan to know you went on a lengthy Ke$ha binge, however, we suggest turning that setting off.

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Via: Joystiq

Source: PlayStation Blog

Tags: hd, hdpostcross, music, PlayStation, Playstation4, ps4, sony, StreamingVideo, VidZone Next: Tesla Model S software update guards against faulty wiring
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Report: Snapchat exploits can steal your private info, expose you to spam

A group of security researchers has published a pair Snapchat security exploits, claiming the popular social startup has ignored requests to address them since August -- prior to any Facebook acquisition talk. The Gibson Security team is hoping that'll force the company to respond to the problems, which they say could pose serious privacy risks for both iOS and Android users. The first bug could help a hacker suss out private user details like phone numbers, while the second could be used to create masses of dummy accounts. Together, they could be used by spammers, or worse, stalkers, provided they roughly know the location of the target. Now that the code's out in public, anyone with technical know-how could exploit the bugs, which the team said could be fixed with "ten lines of code." If true, hopefully Snapchat will jump on them quick -- check the source for more.

Update: Snapchat has responded, acknowledging that "theoretically" the phone number data exploit is possible, but claims it has implemented safeguards over the past year and "recently added additional counter-measures and continue to make improvements to combat spam and abuse."

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Via: Ars Technica, ZDNet

Source: Gibson Security

Tags: exploit, security, snapchat Next: Vidzone brings free music-video streaming to PS4 .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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Taiwan prosecutes HTC's ex-lead designer for fraud and leak

Earlier today, the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office concluded its investigation on the HTC saga that mainly involved ex-lead designer Thomas Chien (pictured above). The report indicts the ex-VP for leaking HTC's upcoming icon designs -- likely from the yet-to-be-released Sense 6.0 -- by way of a presentation, which was shown to his then-future business partners for a new company they were forming together. There's no mention on whether the other party was tied to the Chinese government, as previously rumored, but the meeting was known to have taken place in Beijing back in June.

The investigation also confirmed that Chien's naughty crew managed to rake in NT$33,566,000 or about US$1.12 million, in the form of false expense claims plus rebates from a supplier. In case you forgot, about a quarter of that cash was found inside Chien's Audi, with another quarter confiscated from him separately earlier.

The prosecutors said while most other perpetrators have admitted to their wrongdoings, Chien continued to defend himself and remained in denial of some of his crimes. The court is therefore advised by the report to offer a heavy sentence for the traitor's "malignant" behavior.

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Via: China Times (Chinese), Engadget Chinese

Source: Taipei District Prosecutors Office (Chinese, PDF)

Tags: china, fraud, htc, justinhuang, mobilepostcross, prosecution, thomaschien Next: Report: Snapchat exploits can steal your private info, expose you to spam .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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Samsung's got another tablet in the works

One of the great things about the FCC is that the commission is obligated to reveal all of the newly minted and as-yet unannounced gadgets that pass through its hallowed halls. The latest to be shown is a Samsung tablet measuring in the 8-9-inch category. Naturally, all that the FCC is concerned with is if the unit's Bluetooth and WiFi modules are working properly, so we shall have to wait and see what the SM-T320 turns out to be. But considering that we've got CES in less than a week and MWC a month afterward, we doubt we'll be waiting long.

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Via: Phone Arena

Source: FCC

Tags: Galaxy, samsung, SM-T320, Tab Next: Taiwan prosecutes HTC's ex-lead designer for fraud and leak .fyre .fyre-comment-divider

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Nokia Lumia 1320 lands in China first

Large-phone lovers on a budget, rejoice: Nokia's 6-inch, $339 Lumia 1320 smartphone is now available in China. That's a bit earlier than the January 2014 time-frame it first promised, and the Finnish company said it'll also roll out in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and other countries (likely in Europe) in the coming weeks. It packs a whopping 3,400mAh battery for the long-winded, but otherwise has middling specs: a 720p screen, dual-core 1.7GHz Snapdragon 400 CPU, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of expandable storage and a 5-megapixel camera. Unfortunately, there's no word of an arrival date for those in the US torn between a tablet and phone -- but given the LTE bands we saw at the FCC, don't hold your breath.

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Via: WM Power User

Source: Nokia

Tags: Asia, China, Lumia, Lumia1320, nokia, Release Next: Samsung's got another tablet in the works
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