Latest News - Page 2834

The European Commission has taken Apple to task over in-app purchases, asserting that the Cupertino company has failed to protect consumers from their kids racking up enormous bills in misleading "free" apps.

Following a deluge of complaints across the continent, the Commission approached individual countries to consult on what could be done, before approaching Google and Apple themselves. According to the EC, Google decided on some appropriate changes that are due by September this year. Part of Google's proposals included scrubbing the term "free" from any apps that enabled in-app purchases. But the EC insisted it had not yet heard anything concrete from Apple. "No firm commitment and no timing have been provided for the implementation of such possible future changes," the EC said in a statement. "CPC authorities will continue to engage with Apple to ensure that it provides specific details of changes required and put its practices into line with the common position."

Apple suggested the protections currently in place are enough as they are. "The parental controls in iOS are strong, intuitive and customizable," a spokesperson told the Irish Independent. "And over the last year we've made sure any app which enables customers to make in-app purchases is clearly marked."

PC manufacturer Dell is the latest major company to join the bitcoin cryptocurrency bandwagon, with CEO Michael Dell confirming the announcement. Dell has partnered with Coinbase to help process payments, and the cryptocurrency receives a 1 percent processing fee following $1 million in sales.

"We've fostered a close partnership with the Dell team and that's been instrumental in getting the Coinbase integration up and running in such a short timeframe," said Fred Ehrsam, Coinbase co-founder, in a statement. "We look forward to continuing to support the team as they explore other ways to offer even more functionality when it comes to bitcoin payments."

The updated Dell 'Terms and Conditions' portion of the website indicates if a customer wants a refund from a bitcoin payment, they will receive a check in U.S. dollars.

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden has revealed widespread spying and surveillance, but there has been a large amount of other revelations made by the American. Snowden recently said it's not uncommon for NSA workers to share "intimate nude photos of someone in a sexually compromising situation," including intercepted sexts sent among phone users.

"You've got enlisted guys 18-22 years old," Snowden said. They've suddenly been thrust into a position of extraordinary responsibility where they now have access to all your private records. During the course of their work, they stumble across something that is completely unrelated to their work in any sort of necessary sense, for example, an intimate nude photo of someone in a sexually compromising situation. But they're extremely attractive. So what do they do? They turn around in their char and show a coworker who says, 'Hey that's great. Send that to Bill down the way.' Then Bill sends it to George, who sends it to Tom."

An NSA official didn't deny the activities occurs, but said the organization "has zero tolerance for willful violations" of professional conduct and would address "credible allegations of misconduct." If true, it's not necessarily surprising to hear that this type of behavior happens, though certainly is inappropriate.

We have all been in a situation where we need our phones for one reason or another and the area lacks enough signal for a connection. If you are in an emergency, that lack of a signal can be life threatening. A new device called the GoTenna has debuted that promises to be able to keep you in touch even in areas where cellular signal strength is weak or not available.

The GoTenna is a small 2-ounce wand that can be connected to a backpack or belt loop that is able to connect to a smartphone via Bluetooth low energy. Once connected and powered on, users of GoTenna are able to send messages and GPS coordinates to other people who are also connected by a GoTenna.

High-resolution offline maps are offered by the company allowing users to reference transmitted location data. GoTenna isn't able to give high-speed data or voice capability, so there is no surfing the web or using Facebook with the device. It creates a low frequency radio wave network for iOS and Android devices that is good for about a mile in a dense urban area or about 9 miles in outdoor conditions. Pre-orders are underway now with a pair of the devices selling for $149 before going to $299 per pair later.

Following tragic news that Malaysia Airlines MH17 was shot down in Ukrainian airspace on Thursday morning, details of the incident continue to flood out. The Boeing 777 had 298 people aboard and went down near Torez, located in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk region. The airplane was traveling almost 33,000 feet and was at cruising altitude before being struck by a surface-to-air missile.

It's still unknown what type of surface-to-air missile brought the craft down, but there are only limited options. It seems likely that the powerful Buk missile is responsible; a missile that is 16 feet long and weighs about 1,500 pounds, equipped with a 154-pound warhead - and includes a maximum speed of 2,684 mph. Even if it was fired towards MH17 from a distance of 30 miles, it still would make impact within just 40 seconds, military experts note.

Almost 200 bodies have been recovered, but the crash scene is so large, it's unknown how long it will take to recover the remaining victims.

It's not uncommon to walk into a restaurant and see customers using their smartphones, taking photos of the dinner party and of their food, or communicating via phone, text, or email. However, there is some concern that heavy smartphone use can be a disruption that interferes with how the restaurant runs smoothly.

Some chefs and restaurant managers have complained that smartphones and social media "ruin the dining experience," and some establishments have banned patrons from using phones while at the table. However, being so heavy handed could drive patrons to other restaurants, because banning smartphone use seems a bit over the top, restaurant industry experts warn.

Restaurants need to find a way to ensure they are able to cater to customers, while also ensuring service runs smoothly. As Patrick Duxbury, TAO Downtown restaurant general manager noted: "Those pictures go up on social media, some of them instantly on Instagram and Facebook, and it gets out there."

EXCLUSIVE - We just received photos that appear to be of Apple's upcoming iPhone 6 smartphone from a source who will remain anonymous.

The quality of the photos aren't great, but as far as we can tell, they appear to be accurate images of Apple's soon-to-be-released new 4.7-inch smartphone. If rumors are correct and based on historic data, Apple is set to launch the iPhone 6 in September to major countries around the world.

Additionally, if rumors are correct, this is the smaller version of the iPhone 6, Apple also plans to release a larger 5.5-inch model.

The highest ranking official of the United Nations humans rights department says former NSA contractor Edward Snowden should be celebrated and not hunted. The U.S. and British governments relying on mass surveillance is a "dangerous habit" with very little oversight, even following Snowden's whistleblowing activities.

Snowden is facing espionage charges in the United States, accused of theft of government property, wilful communication of classified communications and unauthorized communication of national defese information. If Snowden did return to the United States, he noted he's not necessarily afraid of a possible trip to Guantanamo Bay - but wants to face a jury trial - something that the federal government probably wouldn't agree to.

"Those who disclose human rights violations should be protected: we need them," said Navi Pillay, UN high commissioner for human rights, during a recent press conference. "I see some of it here in the case of Snowden, because his revelations go to the core of what we are saying about the need for transparency, the need for consultation. We owe a great deal to him for revealing this kind of information."

Former NSA contractor Edward Snowden wants professionals to utilize data protection and encryption to communicate, and is reportedly working on some type of "encryption tools" to help protect sources. Remaining in Russia, with his asylum status extended, it's mainly unknown what the American has been doing with his spare time.

Snowden also is working on funding for the project, which will be used to keep communications between journalists and their anonymous sources secure from government spying.

"Journalists have to be particularly conscious about any sort of network signaling, any sort of connection, any sort of license-plate reading device that they pass on their way to a meeting point, any place they use their credit card, any place they take their phone, any email contact they have with the source because that very first contact, before encrypted communications are established, is enough to give it all away," Snowden recently said in an interview.

Intel is facing troubles with its schedule of its 14nm manufacturing process, however the chipmaker said that this won't affect 10nm fabrication's schedule. Intel may be under the pressure to reassure its investors as its postponed its 14nm processor production plans that was supposed to roll out from its Fab 42 plant in Arizona, USA. 10nm is scheduled for mass-production for 2016.

Intel's CEO Brian Krzanich said during its quarterly conference call with financial analysts and investors,"We have done no changes or shift to our 10nm schedule, but we will not really talk about 10nm schedules until next year". However, Intel didn't reveal details about the production of these chips.

This might be the reason why Intel may show-off its first 10nm wafer during the upcoming Intel Developer Forum 2014. The demonstration of these wafers should reinvigorate investor's faith in Intel's schedule and in its tick-tock strategy, despite 14nm delays. It is also rumoured that Taiwan-based semi-conductor maker TSMC is also making plans to fabricate 10nm chips, which may also pressure Intel to go ahead of schedule with its 10nm roadmap.

Sony made an announcement to remaster its renowned PlayStation 3 titles for PlayStation 4, starting off with The Last of Us. As we reported earlier, the game will run at 1080p resolution with variable framerate to up to 60 FPS. Despite many titles like The Last of US being a hit, many gamers who never owned a PS3 were hesitant to purchase it at the time when the release of next-generation gaming consoles was very close. According to Sony Computer Entertainment, this should help them make the jump, including the current Nintendo Wii owners.

During an interview with Sony Computer Entertainment's boss Andrew house, he said that many of the older PlayStation titles will be released for PlayStation 4 to attract a new audience who are currently using Nintendo Wii. He said,"Our big opportunity is to welcome back an audience much earlier in the lifecycle that possibly bought into the Wii previously".

According to SCE, many players have skipped the purchase of PlayStation 3 for Nintendo Wii, and therefore couldn't get their hands-on playing many exclusive titles. According to him, remastering PlayStation 3 titles for the current gen PlayStation 4 will encourage Wii owners to make a switch.

Microsoft's Chief Operating Officer, Kevin Turner, has said that his company faces a tough future, where he has said that Microsoft operating systems (in whichever form) only power a small amount of devices across the world.

During a presentation at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC), Turner said: "The reality is the world's shifted, the world's evolved. We now measure ourselves in the total device space. And in the total device space we have a 14% share of devices, total worldwide devices". The new figures come from Gartner, which estimated that Windows share of the shipped devices market in 2013 was just 14%, and would decrease this year to 13.7%.

It's not all doom and gloom for Microsoft, which is under fresh control and direction, with Turner saying: "We have a much bigger opportunity than we've ever had in the past to grow our mutual businesses, but we have to rethink how we look at our businesses". The numbers are quite a shock considering Microsoft's operating systems power smartphones, tablets, desktop and notebook PCs, and a bunch of other devices such as 2-in-1 devices and much more.

A new form of malware dubbed 'ScarePakage' is targeting U.S. smartphone owners and can render devices inoperable, according to security firm Lookout. The mobile ransomware tricks users by claiming it's from the FBI, saying phone owners are being investigated for alleged crimes. Once a device is compromised, the ransomware demands "several hundred dollars" or the device will remain under control of ScarePakage.

The ScarePakage ransomware doesn't need root administrator access, and has been designed to be overly intrusive. It runs a Java TimerTask every 10 milliseconds to prevent any other applications or processes to shut down, and stops hijacked devices from going into sleep mode.

"Mobile ransomware in and of itself is a fairly new tactic from malware authors and this is one of the first we've seen targeting the U.S. specifically," said Jeremy Linden, Lookout Senior Security Product Manager, in a statement to TweakTown. "That said, we are less concerned about ScarePakage distributes itself and more concerned about how difficult to remove it is. Once the application has device administrator permissions, it is very hard to regain control of the device."

Oculus VR were meant to begin shipping off the first batches of its new Development Kit 2 headset, but no one has received notification of their shipping details on the second Rift unit just yet - myself included.

I had e-mailed Oculus VR around 20 hours ago now, asking for an official comment, but was told there was no official comment. Hours later, a post by cybereality appeared on the Oculus VR forums, saying: "We've decided to hold the initial shipment of DK2s until the middle of next week so that we have an additional week to polish and QA the new Oculus SDK. We've been working on this update for over a year, with a focus on making the Rift easier to use and develop for. There are multiple major improvements including overhauled device and display handling, and we want to make sure the new SDK ready for integration by thousands of developers when DK2s start arriving at doorsteps".

I think this is fair enough, but it would've been nice to have Oculus VR say something at the beginning of the week. Surely they would've known the new SDK wouldn't be ready, but it's only a few days. Cybereality added: "Sorry to make everyone wait another week. We wouldn't delay if it wasn't important. The good news is that this only affects the very first group that would have received their units, and this doesn't change the total number of units that will ship in July. Again, we'll keep everyone posted. Thanks for bearing with us!

The Last of Us: Remastered is nearly upon us for the PlayStation 4, with more details on the spruced up next-gen version of the game. Sony has confirmed that there is an option to lock the framerate to 30FPS, as the PS4 version of the game will run at 1080p, and a variable framerate of up to 60FPS.

Sony's Sid Shuman has said that choosing between framerates will "boil down to personal preference". The biggest deciding factor will be having an absolute rock solid 30FPS versus the variable, sometimes 60FPS. It'll be great at 60FPS, but when it drops, you're going to feel it. More details have also surfaced on the PS4 remake of the game, where save games won't carry over from the PS3 version of The Last of Us to the PS4, and more.

DLC carries over, which should have some fans happy. There are three major DLC packs for The Last of Us: Abandoned Territories, Reclaimed Territories, and Left Behind. The new PS4 version of The Last of Us will also work with the new DualShock 4 controller, where the touchpad is capable of being used to open up Joel's backpack, audio recordings are played through the speaker on the DualShock 4 controller, and it changes color when you start losing health.

Japan Display Inc. (JDI) and MediaTek are working together to provide the market with 120Hz-capable mobile displays that will see ultra-smooth gaming on mobile devices, but the smartphones that will house these new super-fast displays will be chewing down some serious battery life, too.

With most flagship smartphones, we have 50Hz or 60Hz displays, which is absolutely fine for most video playback, gaming and everything else you throw at it. But for the next-generation of mobile games, and in my opinion virtual reality headsets, 120Hz is vital. MediaTek's MT6596 and MT6795 system-on-chips are both capable of 120FPS.

Jeffrey Ju, General Manager of the MediaTek Smartphone Business Unit said: "120Hz mobile displays are not only a pleasure to view and use, but they also ensure mobile users can see every aspect of detailed screen action with the maximum possible fluidity. We are pleased to have partnered with Japan Display to revolutionize the mobile experience for consumers to experience premium technology". I think we've just seen the future of VR displays unveiled, and I would be confident in saying that this is the type of display that Oculus VR is waiting for its Rift CV1 (Consumer Version 1) headset.

Around 20,000 current and former students at the Orangeburg-Calhoun Technical College in South Carolina are at risk of data theft following a stolen laptop taken from a staff office. Data taken includes names, birthdates and Social Security numbers of both students and faculty going back at almost seven years.

The technical college will now use encryption software on all laptops and PCs, while those affected by the data breach are being contacted. The laptop was stolen on July 7 and an investigation is currently underway to try to identify those responsible.

"College officials were disappointed to learn that someone entered a staff member's office on campus and removed a computer," said Kim Huff, OC Tech VP of Business Affairs, in a statement. "We are evaluating our security controls to prevent further incidents."

A Chinese citizen living in Canada has been arrested and is accused of hacking into Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and other U.S. companies with government defense contracts. Su Bin, also known as Stephen Subin and Stephen Su, is accused of unlawfully accessing computers in the United States, according to the FBI, in an attempt to steal data on military projects.

Su allegedly worked with two other hackers to steal data between 2009 and 2013, with some stolen information offered for sale to Chinese companies. Specifically, they had an interest in F-22, F35, and C-17 U.S. military aircraft - along with weapons programs currently being developed.

"We remain deeply concerned about cyber-enabled theft or sensitive information, and we have repeatedly made it clear that the United States will continue using all the tools our government possesses to strengthen cyber security and confront cybercrime," said Marc Raimondi, U.S. Department of Justice spokesman, in a statement.

Google publicly announced its Project Zero, a new effort aimed at tracking software bugs, with a public vulnerability database also in the works. The company also recruited George Hotz, responsible for hacking the Sony PlayStation 3 and Apple iPhone, among other claims to fame, as an intern to help with the bug hunt.

The Project Zero team will focus solely on tracking down bugs - not just for Google software - to help try to keep the Internet more secure. In addition, Google wants to better understand the techniques, targets and motivations of cybercriminals, as state-sponsored hacking becomes extremely prevalent.

"Once the bug report becomes public (typically once a patch is available), you'll be able to monitor vendor time-to-fix performance, see any discussion about exploitability, and view historical exploits and crash traces," said Chris Evans, responsible for leading Project Zero.

Japan is known as the place to go if you want odd gadgets and other quirky items and Yahoo has a service that sounds like something you would find in Japan called Yahoo Ending. Yahoo Ending is a portal that has a place to go to get all your final affairs in order with the ability to deal with your worldly remains and delete your online data as well.

The new portal launched this week and a video that is making the rounds shows a family getting messages on mobile phones from a dad who just died. When Yahoo receives an official notification that someone has died, it deletes all the Yahoo Japan data, cancels all charges to the Yahoo digital wallet, deletes files from the Yahoo Box online storage, and sends out farewell messages to loved ones automatically.

Some of the services on Yahoo Ending are premium and require payment. Among the services is the ability to set up a memorial space with invitations to the funeral and the ability to send messages to family and friends, show personal movies, and share information on the deceased's favorite films and music. The service also offers full funeral packages costing up to $18,000.