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79 articles, 2016-05-19 00:15 1 Android N moves to beta At its I/O Conference, Google laid out expansive mobile plans 2016-05-19 00:15 2KB www.computerworld.com.au (5.36/6)

2 Google Home is a voice-activated Echo rival Today at Google I/O, the search giant unveiled its Amazon Echo- baiting Home. Google Home is ostensibly a cylindrical speaker with (3.09/6) an angled top featuring Google's iconic four colors. Far-field voice recognition allows to issue commands to the device to control everything from... 2016-05-18 18:27 2KB feeds.betanews.com 3 Google debuts faster, smarter IDE Android Studio 2.2 focuses on speed, smarts, and platform support (2.11/6) 2016-05-19 00:15 2KB www.computerworld.com.au 4 Live from the Google I/O 2016 keynote It's Google I/O Keynote day! It's the day Google finally shows off just about everything they've been working on in secret for the past few (2.09/6) months. And we're.. 2016-05-18 20:16 1KB feedproxy.google.com 5 Google takes a new approach to native apps with Instant Apps for Android Mobile apps often provide a better user experience than browser- based web apps, but you first have to find them, download them, (1.09/6) and then try not to forget you.. 2016-05-18 20:16 5KB feedproxy.google.com 6 Google announces two Hangouts competitors: Allo and Duo Google has announced two apps at its I/O developer conference today: a messaging app called Allo, and a video chat app called (1.07/6) Duo. Both apps will be available for Android and iOS. 2016-05-18 18:19 2KB feedproxy.google.com 7 Windows 10 Mobile Gains Ground As Lumia 520 Is Top Windows Phone New stats show gains for Windows 10 Mobile 2016-05-18 18:06 2KB (1.05/6) news.softpedia.com 8 Google debuts Allo, an AI-based chat app using its new assistant bot, smart replies and more Today at I/O, Google took the wraps off its latest foray into the (1.02/6) world of communications: the company announced Allo, a smart messaging app supercharged.. 2016-05-18 20:16 5KB feedproxy.google.com 9 117 million LinkedIn emails and passwords from a 2012 hack just got posted online

(1.02/6) A LinkedIn hack from back in 2012 is still causing problems for its users. The company announced this morning that another data set from the hack, which.. 2016-05-18 20:16 2KB feedproxy.google.com 10 Apple acknowledges iOS 9.3.2 issue that's bricked some iPads, says it's 'looking into it' Following reports from numerous owners of the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, (1.02/6) saying that the iOS 9.3.2 update had rendered their devices unusable, Apple is now looking into it, but there's no fix available yet. 2016-05-18 14:48 1KB feedproxy.google.com 11 Google unveils , a virtual assistant that’s a big upgrade to Google today said it was unveiling a virtual assistant tool at its (1.01/6) annual Google I/O developer conference in Mountain View called Google Assistant. This.. 2016-05-18 20:16 4KB feedproxy.google.com 12 Android N Developer Preview 3 is now available. Here's the changelog After promising its latest Android N Developer Preview with "beta (1.01/6) quality" at its I/O developer conference today, Google has now made the builds available to download. Here's what's new. 2016-05-18 20:02 1KB feedproxy.google.com 13 Android N’s first beta-quality release gets seamless updates and VR mode

(0.05/6) As expected, Google made Android N, the next version of its mobile , a cornerstone of its I/O keynote today. With Android N, Google moved to.. 2016-05-18 20:16 4KB feedproxy.google.com 14 Apple and Google: Two developer conferences, one matters Depending on the day, Apple or Alphabet is the world's most (0.04/6) valuable company as measured by market cap, and both manage the two dominant computing platforms used anywhere: iOS/OS X and Android/Chrome OS, respectively. As I write, Alphabet- subsidiary Google holds... 2016-05-18 19:58 7KB feeds.betanews.com

15 Cloud security concerns rise as investment (0.01/6) grows, report shows Cloud security concerns are evolving with the increasing adoption of cloud computing, but continue to top the list of barriers to adoption, a study has revealed 2016-05-18 16:00 2KB www.computerweekly.com 16 News News for the Open Source Professional 2016-05-19 00:15 480Bytes www.linux.com 17 Watch ArcAttack rock out, use Tesla coils as musical instruments Attendees at last week’s Maker Faire Austin were in for a treat as ArcAttack, a musical act that harnesses the power of Tesla coils to make music, put on a live performance. Now, thanks to Make senior editor Caleb Kraft,… 2016-05-19 00:15 1KB www.techspot.com 18 Swift 3 Will Not Have a Stable ABI Apple’s Chris Lattner, original creator of the Swift language, has recently announced on the Swift Evolution mailing list that ABI stability, one of the goals originally planned for Swift 3, will be postponed. 2016-05-18 21:09 3KB www.infoq.com 19 will soon break free of your car's console And will show the... you get it already 2016-05-18 20:22 1KB www.techradar.com 20 HTC: "Android N is coming to the HTC 10, One A9 and One M9" The next big Android update is fast approaching - and that means questions will be raised over which devices will be eligible to upgrade. HTC announced three handsets today that will get Android N. 2016-05-18 20:18 1KB feedproxy.google.com 21 Google turns into its unified platform for mobile developers a plethora of cloud services that mobile developers can use to power their apps. With Firebase, which it acquired in 2014, it already offered.. 2016-05-18 20:16 5KB feedproxy.google.com 22 This is Google’s new Daydream VR headset reference design, hardware to start arriving in the fall In what’s become the Google I/O defining moment, the company kicked off the 2012 event with a series of skydivers, bikers, and climbers to debut the hot.. 2016-05-18 20:16 3KB feedproxy.google.com 23 Android Wear 2.0 gets a keyboard, standalone apps, activity recognition and a new UI Google's Android Wear smartwatch platform launched more than two years ago and it's now supported by more than a dozen brands and runs on more than.. 2016-05-18 20:16 7KB feedproxy.google.com 24 WunWun founder Lee Hnetinka launches Darkstore, an on-demand delivery fulfillment platform Last May, Lee Hnetinka shut down his on-demand delivery service WunWun, which was a direct a competitor to Postmates, and then sold the company's assets to.. 2016-05-18 20:16 5KB feedproxy.google.com 25 Google shows off Duo, its new HD video calling app and answer to Apple’s FaceTime Some have criticised Google for falling behind when it comes to social networking and new communications services, but the company is how working hard to.. 2016-05-18 20:16 3KB feedproxy.google.com 26 The best of Highway1’s hardware accelerator demo day Highway1 is a rare breed of accelerator that has realized that the people who most need help are the folks who are doing the startups thing with hardware.. 2016-05-18 20:16 10KB feedproxy.google.com 27 Swiftkey’s newest keyword app, Swiftmoji, suggests emoji as you type SwiftKey, the smart keyboard app maker acquired by Microsoft for $250 million earlier this year, is now testing its next product, a predictive keyboard.. 2016-05-18 20:16 4KB feedproxy.google.com 28 Anti-Reddit platform Imzy partners with Lena Dunham to build online community for Lenny Letter It's no secret that Reddit isn't the best place on the Internet. In fact, its name has become synonymous with hate speech, racism, sexism and other terrible.. 2016-05-18 20:16 8KB feedproxy.google.com 29 Netflix launches its own speed test website, Fast.com Netflix wants you to know how fast your internet connection is, and has today launched a new website, Fast.com, that will give you that information... 2016-05-18 20:16 3KB feedproxy.google.com 30 Space exploration will spur transhumanism and mitigate existential risk When people think about rocket ships and space exploration, they often imagine traveling across the Milky Way, landing on mysterious planets and even meeting.. 2016-05-18 20:16 6KB feedproxy.google.com 31 For democracy’s sake, UK tech staff need to vote in the EU Referendum When it comes to startups trying to scale across Europe one thing is abundantly clear: although the market of over 500 million citizens in the European Union.. 2016-05-18 20:16 5KB feedproxy.google.com 32 PornHub launches BangFit so you can bang to get fit In seemingly bizarre news out of the porn industry, PornHub is launching a new fitness system (wearable + workout videos) called BangFit. As its name.. 2016-05-18 20:16 1KB feedproxy.google.com 33 Right-sizing the development process for startups As the co-founder of a "142-proof" software development agency in the Silicon Valley catering to pre- and post-money companies, I've observed quite a bit of.. 2016-05-18 20:16 6KB feedproxy.google.com 34 Google asks the Internet for N-words – what could possibly go wrong? What's worse than asking the Internet at large to name your product? Telling them it has to start with N. Let's just take a moment to appreciate the.. 2016-05-18 20:16 2KB feedproxy.google.com 35 platform picks up steam with 50M app downloads to date The amount of Google Cardboard app downloads has doubled in just the past four months. Today, onstage at I/O, Google's head of VR, Clay Bavor, announced.. 2016-05-18 20:16 1KB feedproxy.google.com 36 FileHippo News - powered by FeedBurner The developers have stated that the change from Flash to HTML5 shows the maturity of HTML5 and its ability to provide an excellent user... 2016-05-18 19:28 21KB feeds2.feedburner.com

37 Trojan hijacks search results to generate advertising revenue There’s a Trojan out there that forces infected computers to automatically click on advertising banners. By doing so, its creators are earning money while businesses paying to be seen are just burning a hole in their budgets without achieving anything. There’s a Trojan out there that forces... 2016-05-18 18:53 2KB feeds.betanews.com 38 What Student Developers Want Programming book reviews, programming tutorials,programming news, C#, Ruby, Python,C, C++, PHP, Visual Basic, Computer book reviews, computer history, programming history, joomla, theory, spreadsheets and more. 2016-05-18 18:49 4KB www.i-programmer.info 39 Stardock announces the release of popular desktop organization software Fences 3 Stardock has announced immediate availability of Fences 3 which allows you to organize Windows desktop shortcuts and icons in shaded areas that can be hidden by double-clicking to reduce clutter. 2016-05-18 18:02 2KB feedproxy.google.com 40 Siri could come to OS X 10.12 Fuji soon The evidence is mounting 2016-05-18 17:00 1KB www.techradar.com 41 Buy an Xbox One from Microsoft UK, and you'll get a battery hatch with your Gamertag on it Microsoft will give you a free battery hatch customized with your Gamertag when you buy a selected Xbox One console in the UK - but the offer is only available to the first 400 customers. 2016-05-18 16:58 1KB feedproxy.google.com 42 Lenovo reportedly rebranding to Moto Z with upcoming release Lenovo retained Motorola's Moto G lineup of smartphones and launched new devices in the series yesterday without changing much, but it seems the flagship X series is set to be replaced by Moto Z. 2016-05-18 16:42 2KB feedproxy.google.com 43 Blackberry Hamburg Specs Revealed from GFXbench Benchmark Test The smartphone could be an all-touch model 2016-05-18 16:41 1KB news.softpedia.com 44 How to add Shutterstock photos to your Microsoft PowerPoint presentations Shutterstock is now making it easy to find and add quality photos to your Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, as it just launched a new add-in for the popular software that lets you explore and buy images from its vast collection. Shutterstock is now making it easy to find... 2016-05-18 16:38 2KB feeds.betanews.com 45 UPDATE 1-Salesforce revenue beats on strong demand for cloud software The company's net income rose to $38.8 million, or 6 cents per share, in the first quarter ended April 30 from $4.1 million, or 1 cent per share, a year earlier. Analysts on average had expected a profit of 23... 2016-05-18 16:34 2KB www.cnbc.com 46 Samsung Pay now supports membership and loyalty cards I love shopping in brick and mortar stores (except Walmart and Dollar General). No matter what I am buying -- shoes, clothes, food, technology -- I have a blast. My favorite aspect of shopping, however, is getting... 2016-05-18 16:24 3KB feeds.betanews.com 47 Windows 95 running on an Xbox One is slightly mad, but strangely pleasing After the ancient OS appeared on an Apple Watch last month, you can now witness the spectacle of 'Duke Nukem 3D' running on Windows 95 through a DOS emulator converted to a UWP app on the Xbox One. 2016-05-18 16:10 1KB feedproxy.google.com 48 The network is the application: Why APIs are agents of change Sun Microsystems once described the network as the computer. Today, applications are beginning to offer network value 2016-05-18 16:00 2KB www.computerweekly.com 49 Cyber espionage campaign targets Ukraine separatists Security researchers discover a surveillance operation against separatists in Eastern Ukraine using spear phishing attacks to spread previously unknown malware 2016-05-18 15:45 1KB www.computerweekly.com 50 Nike and BMW pilot HP Inc's first 3D printer HP Inc has rolled out its first 3D printer, hoping it will revolutionise manufacturing 2016-05-18 15:45 2KB www.computerweekly.com 51 Panasonic Eluga I2 Gets Updated with 2GB/3GB of RAM and VoLTE Support It comes with a 5MP front camera and 16GB of storage 2016-05-18 15:40 2KB news.softpedia.com

52 Nokia smartphones are making a comeback, this time running of the oldest phone brands is making a comeback. Today, Nokia announces that we will see its name on new smartphones, feature phones and tablets again. And, this time round, the smartphones and tablets will be running Android, the most popular mobile... 2016-05-18 15:16 3KB feeds.betanews.com 53 Five suppliers get 51% of all UK government IT spending, says PAC Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report questions government progress on growing the volume of public-sector business given to SMEs 2016-05-18 15:15 1KB www.computerweekly.com 54 Four-year-old LinkedIn IDs go up for sale online Cast your mind back to 2012 and the LinkedIn hack that had the grown up's social network scurrying to advise its users to change their passwords. Cast your mind back to 2012 and the LinkedIn hack that had the grown up’s social network scurrying to advise its users... 2016-05-18 15:06 2KB feeds.betanews.com 55 Most organisations unprepared for cyber attacks, says report Only 23% of organisations are capable of responding effectively to critical security incidents, according to NTT Com Security's latest threat report 2016-05-18 15:00 2KB www.computerweekly.com 56 Share Your Internet via Wi-Fi by Turning Your PC into a Hotspot Lean how to effortlessly create a virtual router to share a WiFi, Ethernet or 3G/4GB USB modem connection with others 2016-05-18 15:00 1KB www.softpedia.com 57 Coolpad Releases Max and Max Lite with Dual Space Options They also come with fingerprint sensors and fast charging 2016-05-18 14:45 2KB news.softpedia.com 58 New BIOS Versions Available for Intel’s NUC Devices - Download Now The new versions improve the device’s BIOS update function 2016-05-18 14:37 1KB drivers.softpedia.com

59 Past is a comprehensive data analysis tool Read its official description, and Past doesn’t sound like it has much general appeal. Read its official description, and Past doesn’t sound like it has much general appeal. “Paleontological Statistics Software” covering “univariate and multivariate statistics, ecol… 2016-05-18 14:34 2KB feeds.betanews.com 60 Uber's new Trip Tracker feature lets you follow family members' journeys in real-time Uber has announced a new safety feature that links to its recently implemented Family Profiles program. The Trip Tracker update will automatically let family members and other loved ones follow each others’ Uber trips in real-time. 2016-05-18 14:30 2KB www.techspot.com 61 , Slides APIs Revamped To Improve Workflow Revised APIs for Sheets and Slides aim to help developers make data in Google Apps for Work more readily accessible to third-party apps. 2016-05-18 14:06 4KB www.informationweek.com 62 TIBCO accelerates innovation across the core and edge of digital business TIBCO Graph Database and Project Flogo Bring Smarter Connectivity and Real-Time Insights to the Internet of Things and Digital Business 2016-05-18 13:30 3KB sdtimes.com 63 Will the Pilot earpiece be the real-life universal translator we've always wanted? The universal translator has long been a piece of technology present in sci-fi shows, the most memorable one being Star Trek. Now, thanks to New York-based startup Waverly Labs, a real-life version is making its way onto crowdfunding site Indiegogo… 2016-05-18 13:15 3KB www.techspot.com 64 Save $1430 off this Ethical Hacker Professional Certification Package Save over $1400 off this Ethical Hacker Professional Certification Package via Neowin Deals. Leap towards a career in ethical hacking with 60+ hours of prep toward CISM, CISA, and more certifications. 2016-05-18 13:10 2KB feedproxy.google.com 65 Sapphire 16: SAP’s McDermott stresses customer empathy as Microsoft pact declared SAP CEO Bill McDermott says new SAP more empathic at the same time as relationship with Microsoft is bolstered 2016-05-18 13:00 2KB www.computerweekly.com 66 Interest in converged platforms grows in Southeast Asia The adoption of converged and hyper-converged infrastructures in Southeast Asia is in its early stages, but growth is expected. 2016-05-18 13:00 3KB www.computerweekly.com 67 TIBCO announces key analytics advances in 2016 New Data Wrangling Tools, Accelerator for Apache Spark, Operational Intelligence Capabilities, and Developer Community Fortify TIBCO’s Analytics Prowess 2016-05-18 12:58 6KB sdtimes.com 68 HP unveils the Elitebook 1030, boasts a whopping 13-hour battery life HP has launched its latest business laptop, the HP Elitebook 1030, promising "blazing-fast responsiveness" and a battery life of up to 13 hours. Offering a premium design, the device starts at $1,249. 2016-05-18 12:54 2KB feedproxy.google.com 69 Scratch Blocks, Univa announces Navops Command, and Mozilla request to intervene denied— news digest: May 18, 2016 Scratch Blocks is available as an open-source developer preview today, Apple’s recent patent shows an all-screen phone with no home button 2016-05-18 12:51 5KB sdtimes.com 70 acquires wearable payments technology The wearable fitness tracking company said Wednesday it has acquired a payment platform from Coin. 2016-05-18 12:05 1KB www.cnbc.com 71 Foreign hackers could be spying on presidential campaigns: US intelligence The presidential campaigns are tightening their cyber security as U. S. intelligence sees indications of foreign spying. 2016-05-18 11:46 7KB www.cnbc.com 72 Following the success of Doom, it looks as if id Software's next project will be a Quake reboot Before it was released, there were several worrying signs - poor multiplayer beta reactions, no early review copies - that suggested the new Doom title may be disappointing. Thankfully, the game has beet met with an overwhelmingly positive response from… 2016-05-18 11:30 2KB www.techspot.com 73 167 million LinkedIn accounts for sale on dark market, linked to 2012 breach A collection of 167 million LinkedIn accounts is up for sale on a dark market website. The asking price? A mere five Bitcoins, or roughly $2,200. 2016-05-18 10:45 2KB www.techspot.com 74 The Latest: Google's stepping further into the virtual world The Latest from Google's software conference:. Google's stepping further into the virtual world. In a demonstration for some 7,000 attendees at its Google I/O conference in Mountain View, California, the Internet search giant showed how the controller could be used to... 2016-05-18 10:42 7KB www.cnbc.com 75 Microsoft selling feature phone business as Nokia plans a comeback through licensing Microsoft has announced it is selling the feature phone business it acquired from Nokia to FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of Foxconn, and the newly-established Finnish company HMD Global for $350 million. The transaction is expected to close in the second… 2016-05-18 10:00 2KB www.techspot.com 76 Cable is catching fiber: 10 Gbps in both directions demoed by Bell Labs We all know that fiber is the best technology right now for fast internet connections, but sometimes it's too expensive or time consuming to deploy. This is why any technology that harnesses and improves existing deployments of hybrid-fibre coaxial (HFC)… 2016-05-18 09:00 2KB www.techspot.com 77 Massive hacking forum gets hacked, members' details leaked online In what must surely be the ultimate definition of irony, one of the world’s largest hacking forums has been hacked and had the private details of over half a million users dumped online. 2016-05-18 08:00 2KB www.techspot.com 78 T-Mobile expands Binge On for the fifth time, now has more than 80 partners T-Mobile on Tuesday added more than a dozen new services to its Binge On program as the disruptive wireless provider continues to wage war on the competition and the industry as a whole. 2016-05-18 07:00 2KB www.techspot.com 79 Virtual reality brings new life to desktop PCs With all the press about the death of PCs we’ve seen over the last several years, you would be excused for thinking that new desktop PC shipments had essentially stopped. But in an ironic case of what’s old is new… 2016-05-18 06:00 4KB www.techspot.com Articles

79 articles, 2016-05-19 00:15

1 Google Android N moves to beta (5.36/6) Android N , the next version of Google's mobile OS, went to a beta release candidate stage today, with the general release expected this summer. At its I/O conference in Silicon Valley on Wednesday morning, Google showcased Android N Developer Preview 3 capabilities like automatic updates that will done in the background as well as a JIT (just in time) compiler for quicker performance and app installations. The Vulkan 3D graphics API boosts graphics performance, and Android N also will feature better multitasking and security capabilities. Google also previewed Android Instant Apps, which runs modular apps without installing the entire application. For example, a user could engage in a Buzzfeed video session by installing only the piece of the app needed at the time. Instant Apps will be compatible back to the release. Version 2.0 of the Android Wear platform was previewed as well. "Over the past two years, we've learned what people want and don't want in a watch," Google's David Singleton said. The watch face can now show data from any app, and the platform features handwriting capabilities and a keyboard powered by Google's machine learning technology. Google also emphasized its Daydream platform, for enabling high-quality virtual reality on smartphones. Daydream is due this fall and will be part of Android N. Vendors like Samsung, LG and Alcatel will make Daydream- ready phones, and partners including the New York Times will offer virtual reality apps compliant with Daydream. Google's Firebase mobile development platform was updated with a mobile analytics capability that enables grouping of audiences based on specific criteria and taking actions such as notifications. Analytics works with both Android and iOS. For crash reporting, crashes are seen as they are happening, with notifications sent about fixes. The upgrade is available today. Tags Android N More about Google LG Samsung 2016-05-19 00:15 www.computerworld

2 Google Home is a voice-activated Echo rival (3.09/6) Today at Google I/O , the search giant unveiled its Amazon Echo-baiting Home. Google Home is ostensibly a cylindrical speaker with an angled top featuring Google's iconic four colors. Far-field voice recognition allows you to issue commands to the device to control everything from music playback to look up something online. Google's latest foray into the Internet of Things is much more than just a Wi- Fi speaker -- although it will function perfectly well in the role. Just like the voice-activated options in Android, Home can be used to set alarms and reminders, and can even be connected to other smart devices such as Nest thermostats. The speaker grille is an interchangeable base that can be used to customize the look of your device, and project executive Mario Queiroz promises that the audio features "strong bass and clear highs". There's support for Cast technology which means Google Home can be used in conjunction with any app or service that works with , including the likes of and Pandora. Google hasn't released a great deal of information about Home, but a product page has been created where you can sign up to receive more details when they are available. On the page, Google offers up a succinct description of what to expect: While there is a focus on audio content, it is possible to cast video to a TV. Google says that with Home it wants to focus on the features that people actually find important rather than trying to match Echo and Alexa feature for feature. At the moment we know nothing about pricing, nor when it will launch -- although it will be some time before the year is out. If you want to sign up for more information, pay a visit to the Google Home page. 2016-05-18 18:27 By Mark

3 Google debuts faster, smarter Android Studio IDE (2.11/6) Google is offering a preview release of its Android Studio 2.2 IDE , with improvements in areas ranging from testing to build system and layout accommodations. The enhancements focus on three areas: speed, smarts, and platform support, said Google's Stephanie Saad Cuthbertson, Android director of product management. A feature called Espresso test recording makes it easier to conduct tests, automatically churning out code for tests as if the developers had written it themselves. If, for example, an application opens up , creates a document, and shares text with someone, "Android Studio will generate the code that exactly mimics those actions," said Cuthbertson. The IDE also gets a speed boost from faster synchronization with the Gradle build system used with Android development. Improvements in layout functionality, meanwhile, enable faster building of layouts, and the layouts themselves will run quicker. Under the category of smart improvements, an Android Application Package analyzer reduces the size of the APK itself. Enhanced code analysis, meanwhile adds checks to cover Java 8, the support for which was added last month in Android Studio 2.1. Version 2.2 also incorporates the latest version of JetBrains' IntelliJ Idea IDE, which forms the basis of Android Studio, including improved Java 8 backing, as well as enhancements for debugging, editing, and refactoring. The Constraint Layout feature lets developers position widgets in applications and automatically resizes widgets for different Android screens and orientations. The IDE's layout inspector, meanwhile, helps debug application layouts. For platform support, the Jack compiler in version 2.2 features annotation processing as well as reduced build times. For C++ development, the upgrade supports NDK (Native Development Kit) builds and CMake tools. Via a plug-in, developers can use the Firebase SDK, enabling synchronization between devices and the cloud. The IDE now has guides to make Firebase integration easier than it was before. More about Google 2016-05-19 00:15 www.computerworld

4 Live from the Google I/O 2016 keynote (2.09/6) It’s Google I/O Keynote day! It’s the day Google finally shows off just about everything they’ve been working on in secret for the past few months. Android updates! VR headsets, maybe! What else? We covered some of the stuff we expect Google to announce in a post earlier … but we’re still hoping for a few surprises, and we’ll be on the scene, livebloggin’ every moment of interest (and then some.) You can also watch the live stream here . The announcement is scheduled to start at 10 AM Pacific (1 PM Eastern) and we’ll be bringing the news and details back to you as fast as humanly possible starting just before then. Tune in early so you don’t miss anything! 2016-05-18 20:16 Greg Kumparak

5 Google takes a new approach to native apps with Instant Apps for Android (1.09/6) Mobile apps often provide a better user experience than browser-based web apps, but you first have to find them, download them, and then try not to forget you installed them. Now, Google wants us to rethink what mobile apps are and how we interact with them. Instant Apps , a new Android feature Google announced at its I/O developer conference today but plans to roll out very slowly, wants to bridge this gap between mobile apps and web apps by allowing you to use native apps almost instantly — even when you haven’t previously installed them — simply by tapping on a URL. Typically, downloading and installing an app would take a while, but with Instant Apps, developers will have to partition their apps into small, runnable parts that can start within a few seconds. “Instant Apps is really about re-thinking where apps are going,” Google VP of Engineering for Android Dave Burke told me. The idea behind Instant Apps is to make the native app experience as convenient as surfing to a web site. “Web pages are ephemeral,” he said. “They appear, you use them, and never think about them again.” Apps, he argued, have lots of friction and often you only want an app to perform one action or to get a specific piece of information. As Google’s Michael Siliski and Ficus Kirkpatrick told me, the idea here is to allow a mobile experience to start in about the same time it would take to render a standard mobile web page. While the team is still working out the limits, Siliski and Kirkpatrick expects downloads for Instant Apps to clock in at under 4 megabytes. Here is what that would look like in practice: say you are in a new city and want to pay for parking with whatever parking app the local municipality is using. You hold your phone to the parking meter, the built-in NFC chip reads the info, and the native app appears almost instantaneously. There is no need to download the app or even log in (or to uninstall it later). The focus here, they argued, is on making the experience as seamless as possible. Because you’re already logging in to your phone, the app will allow you to pay with your Google Wallet account and then disappear again, for example. “There are classes of apps that are better as a native app but aren’t being experienced like this because of the install hurdle,” Siliski said. Google also worked with BuzzFeed on an early test that lets you open up an instant version of the Buzzfeed Video app to watch a video, and with B&H to show how developers could use this feature for an ad hoc online shopping experience. Developers will have to do some work to enable all of this new functionality, of course. Kirkpatrick noted that this is more of an upgrade to an existing app than a complete rewrite, though. They can still use the same source code and some developers may be able to implement Instant App support in as little as a day (assuming they have a very basic app, of course). Apps will run in a secure sandbox and that this feature, once released, will work all the way back to Android Jelly Bean. Burke connected the idea behind this new kind of app with the current hype around bots. They, too, promise to make it easier to perform some actions without having to install a new application for each task. As Burke argued, though, bots aren’t really all that convenient in practice (yet) given that you have to go through multiple steps and maybe type a bunch of sentences to get anything done. Instant Apps, he said, gives you “the good stuff from bots without the negatives.” It’ll likely be a while before you’ll see any Instant Apps in the wild, though. Google is announcing this feature today to gather input from developers. It has already worked with a few early testers and the team feels it’s ready to provide today’s sneak peek at the functionality. The capability to use Instant Apps will roll out to users later this year and Google plans to expand the set of developers with access to this feature over the course of next year. Why so slow? The company argues that this is a tricky feature to get right. “There are a lot of changes to the developer experience and we want to make sure we get this right,” Siliski said. Google in the past has experimented with a number of ways to bridge the gap between the web and native applications, including surfacing content from Android and iOS apps in search and even streaming virtualized apps from the cloud. But Instant Apps is about making it more seamless and natural to download then use real, native applications. The move comes at a time when the app stores are overrun with content, and consumers are becoming less inclined to seek out and try new applications. A 2015 study indicated that consumers spend 85 percent of their time on smartphones using apps, but only use a small handful of third- party apps on a regular basis. This shift in consumer behavior means that it’s difficult for developers to get their app onto users’ devices – something that Instant Apps could help to address, if implemented correctly. 2016-05-18 20:16 Frederic Lardinois

6 Google announces two Hangouts competitors: Allo and Duo (1.07/6) Google announced a pair of apps today at its I/O developer conference called Allo and Duo. Allo is a messaging app that has the firm's new Google Assistant built-in. The company promises that with this app, your will be safe and secure. In fact, while all messages will be encrypted, the app will also have an Incognito Mode like the Chrome browser does. With this setting turned on, all messages will use end-to-end encryption. You'll also be able to decide when your messages expire, much like Snapchat. Also while using Incognito Mode, the company promised that when you delete your messages, they're gone forever, stating that no one will ever see it again "on your device". The app will also use Smart Reply, offering up suggestions for replies to both text messages and photo messages. The app also contains some cool features, such as the ability to hold the send button and use a slider to make the text in the message smaller or larger. And then there's Duo, a one-to-one video calling app, also offering end-to- end encryption for video calls. The big feature of Duo is that you'll see a video of the person that's calling you before you answer. This way, you're drawn into the conversation before it even starts. Google also promises that Duo will work great wherever you are. When going to an area with service of a lesser quality, the service will "degrade gracefully". The two apps are clearly intended to compete with (or perhaps replace) the firm's current messaging and video calling application, Hangouts. In fact, Allo will be Google's third messaging app. Both apps will be made available for both Android and iOS. Sorry Windows phone users. 2016-05-18 18:19 Rich Woods

7 Windows 10 Mobile Gains Ground As Lumia 520 Is Top Windows Phone (1.05/6) AdDuplex data shows that in the Windows world Windows Phone 8.1 continues to be the number one operating system version with 78.8 percent, followed by Windows 10 Mobile with 10.4 percent. This means Windows 10 has managed to improve its share by 1.2 percent, thus crossing the 10 percent mark thanks to more Windows Phone 8.1 upgrades and old Windows Phone 7 devices being replaced with new handsets. No less than 0.9 percent of the 1.2 percent increase comes from old WP7 devices. Out of the Windows 10 Mobile market, 22.82 percent of the devices are running the operating system natively while 77.18 percent of them are upgrades from Windows Phone. 85.59 percent of the phones are running official builds while 14.41 percent are powered by insider builds. As far as devices are concerned, Lumia 520 is currently the top model after one month on the second place. Lumia 520 now accounts for 12.2 percent of the Windows Phone devices, while Lumia 535 has returned to the second position with 11.7 percent. Lumia 930 is next with 8.9 percent, followed by Lumia 640 with 8.1 percent. New devices such as Lumia 950 and 950 XL are nowhere to be seen just yet, and that makes perfect sense because most of the Windows 10 part is made of Windows Phone devices. Obviously, Microsoft continues to be the top manufacturer of Windows phones with 97.10 percent, followed by HTC with 1.02 percent. Samsung is next with 0.57 percent. In the United States, Lumia 640 is the top device with 27.8 percent, followed by Lumia 635 with 25.4 percent and Lumia 521 far behind with 4.5 percent. 2016-05-18 18:06 Bogdan Popa

8 Google debuts Allo, an AI-based chat app using its new assistant bot, smart replies and more (1.02/6) Today at I/O, Google took the wraps off its latest foray into the world of communications: the company announced Allo, a smart messaging app supercharged with machine learning and Google’s new Google Assistant service (its answer to Amazon’s Alexa), giving users the ability not just to chat to each other with animated graphics and enlarging/shrinking text, but to call in Google (and later other third-party apps) to share media, plan events, buy things, and even think of what to say to each other. The iOS and Android app is being unveiled today, but it will only be live this summer, Google says. If you are a watcher, Allo may not come as a complete surprise: back in December the WSJ reported that the company was working on an AI- based messaging app: this appears to be that very product. The app comes at an interesting time for Google. The company has made a number of attempts at building social products over the years, but products like Google+, Wave and Buzz never really caught on at a time when other products like Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat have taken off. But on the other hand, Google is king when it comes to information services from Search to Maps and more; its email service is hugely popular; it has a formidable engineering machine learning teams; and Google’s Android is the world’s most popular smartphone platform. So while there are already a number of popular messaging apps out there today like Facebook’s WhatsApp and Messenger; Viber; Line; WeChat and others like Slack focusing on enterprise — it’s no surprise to see Google pooling together its strong cards to see if it can make its own messaging product fly. Allo is also something that Google hopes to meet a wider shift in how its own services are being used. “We are building search to be much more assistive,” Google’s CEO noted today during the I/O keynote when unveiling Google Assistant and the many helping nudges it gives you when you are looking for information through Google.com. He also noted that some 50% of queries these days are coming from mobile, so the audience is already there. Although Google apparently tried to acquire at least one startup — 200 Labs, now called ChatFuel –to help build Allo, the app was developed in- house by Google’s own teams led by Erik Kay, director of engineering for Google’s Communication team, who also led today’s presentation at I/O. Also important to note: The Hangouts mobile app — which also offers a chat option — is not going away. Google says it will continue to invest in and update this alongside Allo. As with other messaging apps, Allo users will be able to find people to chat to based on their phone numbers, and those that use Google accounts for services like will also be able to call in their contacts from those services. In keeping with the bigger trends we’ve seen over user privacy in messaging services, and with Google’s own developments in Chrome, Google will give users the option to use Allo in ‘incognito’ mode, where chats are encrypted end-to-end, with discreet notifications — features that Google says it plans to continue to iterate on and update. Users can have basic conversations with each other using Allo, but the app looks like it will really come into its own when using all of its bells and whistles. In addition to emoji and a “whisper”/”loud” mode where you can enlarge and shrink text to emphasize what you’re saying, there are a number of AI-based details. These will include a Smart Reply feature that is similar to the one in Inbox, which will suggest responses to you for conversations so that you don’t need to type anything. As with Inbox’s Smart Reply, the app will “learn” how you reply to things to make more relevant suggestions to you. Smart Reply will also work with photos in , suggesting replies to images (just a little creepy…) to keep a conversation going when you can’t be bothered to reply ‘yum’ to a food pic perhaps. The other interesting thing is how Google has incorporated its own bot- based Google Assistant that it announced earlier during I/O. This will have some natural language ability, so that you can chat with it directly, or ask it questions, or summon into a group chat when planning something, and it will give you replies. Initially the assistant will be able to reference services that you can already see in other, existing Google applications: for example, plane times, sports scores, what’s on at the cinema, place locations, and search queries. Over time, Google will likely let developers integrate with the assistant bot so that it can reference information from these third-party services. Time will tell if the assistant proves to work better than some of the other bots that we’ve seen launched from other messaging companies. This will bring in games and a lot more features over time. 2016-05-18 20:16 Ingrid Lunden

9 9 117 million LinkedIn emails and passwords from a 2012 hack just got posted online (1.02/6) A LinkedIn hack from back in 2012 is still causing problems for its users. The company announced this morning that another data set from the hack, which contains over 100 million LinkedIn members’ emails and passwords, has now been released. In response to this new data dump, LinkedIn says it’s working to validate the accounts and contact affected users so they can reset their passwords on the site. As you may or may not recall, given how much time has passed, hackers broke into LinkedIn’s network back in 2012, stole some 6.5 million encrypted passwords, and posted them onto a Russian hacker forum. Because the passwords were stored as unsalted SHA-1 hashes, hundreds of thousands were quickly cracked. Now, according to a new report from Motherboard , a hacker going by the name of “Peace” is trying to sell the emails and passwords of 117 million LinkedIn members on a dark web illegal marketplace for around $2,200, payable in bitcoin. In total, the data set includes 167 million accounts, but of those, only 117 million or so have both emails and encrypted passwords. As this data set also originates from the 2012 hack, these passwords are encrypted in the same way – with “no salt” – meaning they are more easily cracked. In fact, Motherboard states that 90 percent of the passwords were cracked within 72 hours. Several of the victims were still using their same password from 2012, the report also said. Whether or not current LinkedIn users should be concerned comes down to a handful of factors: did you have an account during the time of the 2012 breach, have you changed your password since, and has that password been reused on other websites? If you’re not sure, a best practice would be to change it anyway, as well as on other critical sites where you may be using that same password such as your banking website, email, or Facebook, for example. LinkedIn says that it has increased its security measures in the years since the breach, by introducing stronger encryption, email challenges and two- factor authentication. But this hack was from an earlier era, before these protections were in place. They would also not necessarily protect users from hackers who had obtained email and password combinations. The full text of LinkedIn’s statement is below: 2016-05-18 20:16 Sarah Perez

10 Apple acknowledges iOS 9.3.2 issue that's bricked some iPads, says it's 'looking into it' (1.02/6) On Monday, Apple released iOS 9.3.2 , the latest update to its mobile operating system - but within 24 hours, numerous reports had emerged from owners of its newest tablet, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, complaining that their devices had been bricked . The issue presented owners with 'Error 56' which, according to Apple's support documentation, is a 'hardware issue'. Attempting to restore the device by connecting to iTunes on a computer proved fruitless for many of those affected. However, Apple has now acknowledged the issue, raising hopes that it will soon provide a fix for the problem. In a statement to iMore , it said: As Apple's statement indicates, it has no immediate fixes or workarounds to quickly resolve the issue for users whose devices have been rendered unusable - so if your iPad has been affected, contacting Apple support is the only option available for now. Source: iMore 2016-05-18 14:48 Andy Weir

11 Google unveils Google Assistant, a virtual assistant that’s a big upgrade to Google Now (1.01/6) Google today said it was unveiling a virtual assistant tool at its annual Google I/O developer conference in Mountain View called Google Assistant. This appears to be similar to what Google Now can do already, but it appears to be an upgraded version of it. You can ask a question for an answer, and follow up with multiple questions, with Google picking the conversation out and returning the right answer. The service is integrated in its new conversational user interface products: Google Assistant is also built into Allo , its new independent chat bot app, as well as Google Home , its Amazon Echo competitor. “Think of the assistant, we think of it as a conversational assistant, we want users to have an ongoing two-way dialog,” CEO Sundar Pichai said. Google Assistant also appears to extend to chats. Users can make queries, and Google Assistant should be able to distinguish each question and return a correct answer. It’s basically Google Now as a really smart chat bot, it would seem. That’s going to be an important avenue for Google, as services turn their eyes to more conversational user interfaces and AI- powered concierge services. Google Assistant appears to be more of a direct competitor to Alexa and Siri, as well as virtual assistants like Hound. It could signal that Google is getting more and more serious about branding itself as a virtual assistant that can return anything and everything that users need when they are searching for an answer. Here’s an example use case: a Google Assistant user can ask Google — through chat or voice — who the director of a film like Gravity is. They could then follow up with a question, such as “what other movies has he or she directed,” and Google Assistant should be able to return an answer. Google Assistant can also execute certain tasks, like changing reservation times or setting calendar reminders. While this seems like it might just be an upgrade to Google Now, this is still a significant move for Google. Google wants to extend its search functions across all kinds of devices and interfaces, whether that’s a conversational user interface similar to Facebook’s messenger bots, a voice interface like Alexa, or standard search queries through Google’s traditional search engine. “Think of the assistant of an ambient experience that extends across devices,” Pichai said. “Computing evolving beyond phones.” The big question is whether Google is late to the game on this one. Hound unveiled its virtual assistant — which is very impressive — and Facebook is gunning for its own virtual assistant application, as well as building a developer platform for other aspects of virtual assistants. Google’s play is that it can leverage its powerful AI tools and all the data it’s collected over the years to build a superior virtual assistant. Google also has name recognition going for it. While Google — and other search interfaces — extend to new devices, Google is also going to have to find new ways to monetize it. Google’s “cost-per-click,” essentially the value of each advertisement, has been dropping consistently for the past years. The company has tried to make up for it with more queries on mobile devices, but it’s still going to have to build new advertising products to continue to grow its business. A conversational interface represents a new product for searching, and now Google is going to have to figure out how to build a new advertising product for it. Luckily, Google has decades of experience building advertising products for search, so there’s a good chance we’ll be seeing some kind of new advertising product attached to this in the near future. Google today also unveiled Google Home, a competitor to Alexa that serves as an ambient voice-recognition interface for Google Assistant. As Google continues to refine Google Assistant, it’s going to make sure it continues to extend its search products across any and all new interfaces in order to head off competition from individually focused search products like Amazon — searching for products — or Facebook — searching for people. 2016-05-18 20:16 Matthew Lynley

12 Android N Developer Preview 3 is now available. Here's the changelog (1.01/6) At the keynote at Google's I/O developer conference today, the firm announced Android N Developer Preview 3 , a build that would be of "beta quality" and be made available later on. The company made good on its promise, as the builds are now available. Here's what's new: Google has also published a list of API changes, as well as known issues, which you can find here . If you're interested in trying out the Preview, you can get it on the following devices: There are two ways to get Android N on your device. One is to sign up for the Android Beta program. Once you enroll your device, you'll get an OTA update. If you choose to disenroll, you'll get an OTA update to roll back. The other way to do it is to flash the image; however, if you want to roll back, you'll have to flash Marshmallow too. You can find the images right here. This build is the third of five Developer Previews that Google will deliver. Preview 4 will deliver the final APIs, official SDK, and the ability to upload apps for Android N to the Play Store. Preview 5 promises "near-final system images", followed by the final release, which will be this summer. 2016-05-18 20:02 Rich Woods

13 Android N’s first beta-quality release gets seamless updates and VR mode (0.05/6) As expected, Google made Android N , the next version of its mobile operating system, a cornerstone of its I/O keynote today. With Android N, Google moved to a very different release cycle compared to previous releases. While I/O is usually the place for Google to share a first look at new versions of Android, it actually released a first preview of N a few months ago. This was also the first preview of N to arrive as an over-the-air update, so far more people than ever before have tested it already. Today, the company is launching the third Android N preview release and the first one the team considers to be a “beta-quality candidate.” Like before, the new preview is available on the , 9, 5X, 6P, , C and Android One (General Mobile 4G). If you want to test it, you can sign up here. The final release data remains unknown, but Google says it expects to final release to hit “later this summer.” Google’s VP of engineering for Android Dave Burke tells me he believes the operating system is now read for usage on your main phone and tablet. In my experience, even the first preview releases were quite usable already, but Burke argued that while most people were surprised by the quality of these early builds, the team still found plenty of show-stopping bugs to fix. It’s no surprise then that much of what Google talked about today was already known. This includes Android N’s multi-window support (which finally makes tablets like the usable as productivity tools), as well as its updates to the graphics API and the inclusion of a fast just-in-time compiler that should result in significant performance gains. Burke said app installs should now be 75 percent faster and apps will need significantly less space, too. It’s also no surprise that Google didn’t show all its cards in the first previews. New in Android N is a VR mode, for example. This mode gives VR apps priority access to the CPU and GPU on a phone and adds a couple of software techniques for making the latency between your head movements and the time updates to reflect this as short as currently possible. Google claims these changes bring down latency on a with Cardboard from 100ms to under 20ms, which should result in a far more immersive experience. Here is our more in-depth look at how this works and what it means for Android as a VR platform. With this update, Google is also introducing a new update process. Android devices will now quietly download an update and set it up on the background so the operating system simply has to switch between the old and new image when you restart your device. Instead of having to wait for a few minutes to finish the update, you now simply have to restart your phone or tablet and the operating system automatically switches to the new version. This is the way updates on Chrome OS already worked and Burke tells me the two teams worked together on this. One change now is that the phone won’t immediately prompt you to install and update, though. Instead, it will first wait for you to restart your device. Burke says Google’s research shows that most people restart their phones more than once per month and that using this process on Chrome OS typically results in 99 percent update rates within a few months. After you’ve restarted your device and the update has been applied, Android also won’t ask you to re-enter your password if you typically use a fingerprint scanner or other means of authenticating. 2016-05-18 20:16 Frederic Lardinois

14 Apple and Google: Two developer conferences, one matters (0.04/6) Depending on the day, Apple or Alphabet is the world's most valuable company as measured by market cap, and both manage the two dominant computing platforms used anywhere: iOS/OS X and Android/Chrome OS, respectively. As I write, Alphabet-subsidiary Google holds its annual developer conference. Apple's event starts June 13. During the opening keynote, Google CEO Sundar Pichai frames the conference and the company's direction by rightly focusing on two fundamentally future-forward concepts: Voice and context. Google gets what Apple likely won't present to its developers, and we'll know next month. But based on product priority to date, the fruit-logo company is unlikely to match its rival's commitment to the next user interface. Contextual Computing "We live in very, very exciting times," Pichai tells Google I/O attendees. "It is truly the moment of mobile". Example: "Over 50 percent of our queries come from mobile phones". In the United States, one in five queries is from voice, with context typically the defining characteristic—meaning information sought based on need or location. I believe it. Last week, sitting in Wendy's with my 94 year-old father-in-law, an elementary school-age kid behind me spoke "OK, Google" to his phone before several questions. We are on the cusp of Star Trek computing, where information is available at the command of your voice and the machine is a personal assistant that anticipates you. I've harped about the importance of context and voice interaction for a long time. In May 2005, I described " Search as the New User Interface "— essentially command line for the Internet—diminishing the relevance of the then traditional desktop motif. Search's extension is hands-free interaction based on contextual need. Apple operates under the misconception that we have entered the post-pc- era. There is no such thing. I contend (again) that this is the contextual cloud computing era where how, when, and where devices and services are used matters more. How people use the tech changes depending on context, but the underlying cloud services deliver it. Google gets context. Few other companies do. The cloud is all about context. Content follows users everywhere, independent of device. Your music is available anytime, anywhere, on anything. You watch a movie in one context, sitting in the man chair at the mall on a smartphone and resume on the big-screen TV at home. Content is the same, but context and device change. They say content is king. No, context is. The surest way to platform success, particularly around ones where third parties build other stuff and profit from it, is the killer application. More than one is even better. But I use applications differently than most people do. I don't refer to the software program, but how the thing is used. The context. The PC offered greater contextual usage than the mainframe. Suddenly a computer could be used inside a small business, home, or school rather than fixed terminals connected to a mainframe. Smartphones and tablets provide even greater context, as do panels delivering ads on the street or recipes to your refrigerator. There are more applications—meaning ways the thing is used. But in this computing era, devices don't stand alone. They are connected, which from the cloud is a throwback to the mainframe era but location independent. Life in Sync In June 2007, writing for the now defunct Microsoft-Watch blog, I started calling out sync as the "killer application" for the connected-device era, warning: "If Google gets synchronization right before Microsoft, it's game over". No company does sync better than Google. But the term isn't just about synchronizing information but getting your life in sync—that's the practical benefit the search and information subsidiary put forth today with the new Google Assistant. Pichai describes the cloud-based tech as an "ongoing, two-way dialog with Google". He emphasizes the importance of context and building a personalized Google for each individual. "Every single conversation is different—every single context is different". He describes an "ambient experience" across devices. Among those forthcoming gadgets: Google Home , which capabilities remind of Amazon Alexa on Echo —Pichai offhandedly praises the retailer for popularizing the category. Like Echo, Google Home is a contextually- relevant, WiFi-connected, cloud streaming speaker. As I expressed earlier, synchronization is more than about information but syncing your life. Google Home works with related platform devices, such as the search company's Audio or Nest, drawing from contextual cloud services. In the demo video, a dad uses his voice to start music streaming in the kitchen but later commands playing in the bedrooms to wake his kids. That's connection to Chromecast Audio. Uh-oh, looks like the preferred prompt changes to "Hey, Google" from "OK, Google". Is that a dig at Apple, or copycatting? Big A uses "Hey, Siri". Near the video's end, a youngster preparing for school asks Google what is the closest star to the Earth. He gets the answer and asks the assistant to show him, and a photo of Alpha Centauri appears on the TV—that's the Chromecast connection. BTW, Google has sold more than 25 million of the streaming devices. Machine Learning Like I said, context is king, and Big G gets it. Apple offers some voice- command contextual capabilities among iOS devices and supporting services but lacks the depth Google brings from search and how it refines voice or text-input queries from apps and extended services. For example, during today's keynote, presenters highlighted new search capabilities available from Google Photos, which has more than 200 million active monthly users. The more things that subscribers search for, the greater is the accuracy over time. It's machine learning in progress that can be applied to search across the entire Internet, not just the soloed service, for everyone. Other examples of context in motion: Android Wear 2.0 auto-detecting fitness activity. Forthcoming Allo messaging and Duo video-calling apps also are contextually aware. More ambitious context in practice: Android Instant Apps. downloads function-specific code based on need, rather than requiring the user to install something. For example, if someone sends you a message with link to a BuzzFeed video, Android Instant Apps plays the clip without installing the full BF app, if not on the device. Many of the products and services demoed today, including Android N and extended Google Cardboard/VR capabilities, won't release until later this year. When isn't so important as what. Sundar Pichai laid out a clear vision for how Google will fundamentally define the user interface for cloud- connected device: Context, search, and voice. Photo Credit: Nicholas Piccillo / Shutterstock 2016-05-18 19:58 By Joe

15 15 Cloud security concerns rise as investment grows, report shows (0.01/6) Enterprise cloud security concerns are rising as investment in cloud grows, with abuse of user credentials seen as the biggest single threat, a report has revealed. More than half of 2,200 global security professionals polled said unauthorised access through misuse of employee credentials and improper access controls is the single biggest threat to cloud security, followed by hijacking of accounts (44%) and insecure interfaces (39%). “More than 56% of surveyed organisations use Active Directory on- premises to authenticate and authorise access to cloud applications, such as Microsoft Office 365,” said Alvaro Vitta, principal solutions consultant at Dell Systems and Information Management. “The failure to provide adequate on-premises Active Directory security controls leave cloud-based applications vulnerable to unauthorised access. Don’t let on-premises Active Directory be your hybrid directory environment’s Achilles’ heel,” he said. One in three organisations said external sharing of sensitive information is the biggest security threat, according to 2016 Cloud Security Spotlight Report by Crowd Research Partners , in collaboration with Alien Vault, Bitglass, Cato Networks, CloudPassage, Dell Software, Dome9 Security, Immunio, (ISC) 2 and Randtronics. Overall, the study indicates cloud security concerns are evolving with the increasing adoption of cloud computing, and that security concerns continue to top the list of barriers to cloud adoption. General security concerns are cited as a barrier to adoption by 53% of respondents, up from 45% a year ago, followed by legal and regulatory compliance concerns cited by 42%, up from 29%, and data loss and leakage risks cited by 40% of respondents. 2016-05-18 16:00 Security Editor

16 News Brought to you by The Linux Foundation is a non-profit consortium enabling collaboration and innovation through an open source development model. Learn More © 2016 The Linux Foundation 2016-05-19 00:15 www.linux

17 Watch ArcAttack rock out, use Tesla coils as musical instruments Attendees at last week’s Maker Faire Austin were in for a treat as ArcAttack , a musical act that harnesses the power of Tesla coils to make music, put on a live performance. Now, thanks to Make senior editor Caleb Kraft, you can watch their full set on YouTube… in 360 degrees. In addition to playing music and educating the crowd, ArcAttack even invited onlookers to dance inside a Faraday case as it is blasted with tens of thousands of volts. If you’ve never seen a Tesla coil in action, they’re certainly interesting and a bit terrifying. Video, even the 360-degree variety, doesn't do it justice. Found is a TechSpot feature where we share clever, funny or otherwise interesting stuff from around the web. 2016-05-19 00:15 Shawn Knight

18 Swift 3 Will Not Have a Stable ABI Apple’s Chris Lattner, original creator of the Swift language, has recently announced on the Swift Evolution mailing list that ABI stability, one of the goals originally planned for Swift 3, will be postponed. In Lattner’s own words: Some of the loftier goals that we started out with aren’t going to fit into the release - including some of the most important generics features needed in order to lock down the ABI of the standard library. As a consequence, ABI stabilization has been removed from the Swift Evolution repository’s ReadMe. As it was stated in the original ReadMe, ABI stabilization would allow applications and libraries compiled with future versions of Swift to be able to interact with binary code compiled with Swift 3.0. Thus, ABI stability would guarantee some level of binary compatibility, even in spite of changes in the source language, and would make it easier for third-parties to ship binary libraries. Additionally, ABI stability would allow to remove the need to ship the Swift standard library along with binaries, as is currently the case with iOS and OS X apps created with Xcode. Lattner also clarified that the discussion concerning this feature and when it will make it into the language will take place starting sometime around August 2016. It is not yet clear whether ABI stability will come with Swift 3.1 or 4.0 , but Lattner expects it to be one of the highest priority features. Lattner’s announcement was met with some complaints about how most of the goals originally considered for Swift 3 have been dropped. Other comments stressed how Swift 3's initial scope was defined at the very beginning of Swift open-sourcing, and that it was input provided by the community which later drove Swift to focus development on other areas of the language that needed better definition before the ABI could be stabilized. Apple engineer Greg Parker additionally remarked that once an ABI is defined, it becomes very hard to change it, as the history of OS X and iOS architecture transitions demonstrates. In particular, he mentions a few cases where the Objective C ABIs had deliberate or accidental flaws mostly due to schedule pressure, such as BOOL being a character instead of a proper boolean, or the use of setjmp-longjmp exceptions instead of "zero-cost" exceptions due to GCC legacy, and others. All in all, he concludes: If we tried to rush Swift ABI stability out the door for Swift 3 we would certainly end up with deliberate or accidental flaws [...]. Being able to take the time to get it right is a rare luxury. 2016-05-18 21:09 Sergio De

19 Android Auto will soon break free of your car's console Android Auto will be available straight from Android phones soon and with it, popular navigation app Waze. Android Auto, Google's in-car interface, will soon be available to download as an app. This means you won't have to buy a new car or an expensive head unit to use it. In other words, access to Android Auto will no longer cost you hundreds to thousands of dollars. Android Auto will be tweaked for phones, with a slightly different interface for smaller screens. "The Interface will be tailored for the phone, but immediately recognizable as Android Auto," director of Android Patrick Brady said. The social-bent navigator has been a popular app for drivers with features like accident and police reporting, superior traffic rerouting and chat. Oh, and you can have T-Pain navigate you, too. Additionally, Android Auto will work wirelessly in some compatible cars. This means you won't need to plug in your phone in order to power a car's head unit. Just be aware that using Android Auto wirelessly will drain your battery since your phone isn't being charged via cable. However, cars with wireless charging pads built in will solve this issue. Via CNET Article continues below 2016-05-18 20:22 Lewis Leong

20 HTC: "Android N is coming to the HTC 10, One A9 and One M9" Since Google released Android 6.0 Marshmallow seven months ago, that version of the OS has made its way to just 7.5% of active Android devices - but the next version is already on the horizon. Google said today that Android N is expected to launch this summer - which means it remains on track with its roadmap - but inevitably, that raises fresh questions over which devices will be officially supported by the upgrade. Coinciding with Google's I/O developer conference today, HTC has now answered that question - partially, at least: The tweet confirms that Android N will be available for the HTC 10, One A9 and One M9, which isn't at all surprising, when you consider that those are three of the company's newest handsets. But if you own an older HTC device, don't despair. The footnote on the image in the tweet points out that "timing and additional devices to receive the update will be announced later this year when Google ships Android N to manufacturers". The good news, then, is that we can infer that the three handsets HTC referred to do not represent a complete or exhaustive list of devices that it will upgrade to Android N. The bad news, of course, is that we still don't know which devices will be upgraded besides those already mentioned. 2016-05-18 20:18 Andy Weir

21 Google turns Firebase into its unified platform for mobile developers Google offers a plethora of cloud services that mobile developers can use to power their apps. With Firebase , which it acquired in 2014 , it already offered developers a dedicated platform and SDK for building mobile apps; today it is greatly expanding this service by launching a number of new features and integrating the service deeper into the rest of its cloud tools. The new Firebase , which the company announced at its I/O developer conference today, takes the service’s existing features and expands upon them. In its previous incarnation, Firebase was somewhat similar to Facebook’s now-defunct Parse in that it offered a database service, user authentication features and hosting tools. In this new version, Firebase takes many of Google’s existing developer tools, like , and combines them with new and existing Firebase services. With this update, Google is turning Firebase into a unified app platform for its now 470,000 developers on the service (up from 110,000 when it acquired Firebase). Firebase now features a very deeply integrated analytics services, for example, which was built by the same team that is responsible for . All developers have to do to implement this is add a few lines of code to their apps. This will feed basic user information right from the app to Firebase, but just like with Google Analytics, developers can also instrument specific parts of their apps with fine-grained events in order to, for example, track whenever a button was pressed or a purchase was made. Using this data, Firebase can then build audience segments and allow developers to analyze their users’ behavior in even more detail, and see how their advertising campaigns are performing. These audience segments play a major role in two other new features the team built into the service. The first is the ability to make remote configuration changes in apps. You could use this to do some A/B testing, for example, but also to maybe give some players in your game a bit more time to finish a level or to present a different call to action to those of your users who have previously bought something in your app. Another new feature that can make use of these segments is Firebase’s new notifications system. This feature is based on Google Cloud Messaging, which is now changing its name to (another sign for how important the Firebase brand is to Google). The company now offers all Firebase users free and unlimited notifications with support for iOS, Android and the Web. Combined with the audience segmentation, developers can easily send one notification to their users in the U. S. and Canada, for example, and a translated one to their users in another country. With this update, Google is also integrating into Firebase its Cloud Test Lab for testing mobile apps on real hardware, renaming it the Firebase Test Lab. Access to this service is now built right into the Firebase developer console. Other new Firebase features include crash reporting (which also reports right into the new analytics service so you can see how crashes affect your users), and the ability to create dynamic deep links into your app. What makes these links dynamic is that you can set rules for where they should take users. If somebody has your Android app installed, for example, the link can point directly into the app. For users who don’t have the app installed, the link can point to the Play Store. Also new are Firebase Invites for allowing app users to share referral codes, Firebase App Indexing (previously known as Google App Indexing) for bringing app content into and integration with Google’s AdWords and advertising platforms. Google also is introducing a new pricing plan for Firebase with this update. There is now a free plan with some pretty decent limits, as well as a fixed- rate plan for early-stage startups that want a predictable monthly bill, and a pay-as-you go plan for larger apps. As the Firebase team told me, Google now sees Firebase as its recommended platform for building mobile apps. With Parse, of course, Facebook once had very similar ambitions to offer a cloud-based backend for mobile developers. Facebook shut down Parse earlier this year, but the Firebase team argues that its users don’t have to fear a similar fate because Google sees Firebase as a way to bring more users onto its cloud platform. Firebase, after all, ties into various other Google services, including its ads business, but also services like BigQuery (which you can now use to analyze your raw analytics data). Facebook didn’t have this natural tie-in for other services on its platform. 2016-05-18 20:16 Frederic Lardinois

22 This is Google’s new Daydream VR headset reference design, hardware to start arriving in the fall In what’s become the Google I/O defining moment, the company kicked off the 2012 event with a series of skydivers, bikers, and climbers to debut the hot newness that was Project Glass (hindsight, etc.). Two years later, Google went all Oprah on everyone and sent I/O attendees home with Cardboard headsets of their very own – this was, mind you, back in the days before the system came free with the daily newspaper. Those two projects have, obviously, been met with differing levels of success, but one thing is for certain: Google is really committed to changing our perceptions by way of attaching screens to our faces. As anticipated , this year’s event marks the software giant’s next big step into that world with another push into VR hardware. Along with a platform called “Daydream” and a VR mode for the newly unveiled Android N, the company show off the headset we’ve been hearing so much about of late — or at least a basic reference design for third-party developers, debuting a sketch of a headset and a controller for third hardware developers. There’s not much in the way of info at the moment, but the company announced that there are “several” devices currently in the pipeline, with the first units arriving in the fall. According to Google, the specs detail things like optics and comfort — all of the sorts of bits one would anticipate. The company also expects the new hardware to improve the Google VR experience beyond the entry-level Cardboard, making it possible to experience the system for longer periods. As for the controller, it’s an extremely simple ovular design featuring a few buttons and a clickable, swipable touchpad. Inside is an orientation sensor, allowing for more immersive movement control, the proverbial “magic” that Google talked up on stage. The company also discussed the device’s flexibility and added that the third-party developers it’s shown it to thus far “absolutely love it.” There’s unfortunately not a heck of a lot more to share about the hardware at the moment, but Google was more than happy to talk up some of those VR partners. Among other things, the company will be offering up a Daydream version of Google Play, so existing VR apps from places like The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal and CNN will join the fray seamlessly. Hulu, Netflix, HBO and IMAX are also on board as content partners, along with top-tier game studios like Ubisoft and EA. Along with the headset, Google is also outlining a list of specs that make smartphones “Daydream- Ready,” meaning they have sufficient processing, sensor and display specs to run the company’s new VR platform. 2016-05-18 20:16 Brian Heater

23 Android Wear 2.0 gets a keyboard, standalone apps, activity recognition and a new UI Google’s Android Wear smartwatch platform launched more than two years ago and it’s now supported by more than a dozen brands and runs on more than 100 watch designs. Today, the company took the wraps off version 2.0 of Android Wear, the biggest update of the platform yet. Google will release the developer preview of Wear 2.0 at I/O, but it’ll take until the fall before this new version will roll out to all users. As Google VP of Engineering for Android Wear David Singleton told me, the team took a closer look at how people are using their watches now that they have been on the market for a while and focused on improving those features. The new version, he said, represents a “holistic pass across the design of the whole system” and focuses on providing users more glanceable information, improved messaging tools (including support for keyboards, handwriting recognition and smart replies), as well as new fitness and wellness features. Maybe the most immediately noticeable change the team made is to bring even more of Google’s philosophy to Android Wear . Thanks to this, the design now looks more polished , but, as Singleton noted, the idea here wasn’t to simply take the Material Design guidelines from other platforms and apply them to Android Wear. Instead, the team made adjustments when necessary. In practice, this means Android Wear lists on round Android Wear watches now curve along the side of the screen, for example. By default, the navigation drawer is now also always at the top of the screen and notifications show up at the bottom — putting the information at the center. The update also puts a stronger emphasis on color (the notifications use the primary color of the app that created them, for example). Watch faces, too, are getting an update in Wear 2.0. Thanks to the new Complications API , watch face developers will now be able to use a unified API to include data from other applications on their watch faces. Today, these developers have to build one-off integrations with other applications like the calendar, , Strava or Spotify. Now, they will be able to designate a number of spots on their watch faces for these third- party integrations and users will be able to tweak them according to their needs. App developers will be able to choose which data you want to share with watch face developers. Singleton noted that the API also allows for pulling in images from Google Drive, Microsoft’s OneDrive and other services. While watch faces are interesting, though, Singleton told me that when the team looked at how people used their watches, interactions with messaging was “off the charts.” With Wear 2.0, the team focused on making interacting with messages a significantly better experience. In the current version of Wear, messages tend to hide in an expandable panel at the bottom of the page. Now, when your watch buzzes, you will see the message full screen and you can interact with it right away (and if you don’t, you’ll see the person’s avatar on the watch face the next time you wake the watch to remind you of the incoming message). The biggest changes, though, have been reserved for how you respond to messages. Before, you had to swipe to the side to reply, for example. Now, you simply tap on the message and Wear will drop you into a mini-app that shows you more data and possible actions. The team added three new features for responding to messages, too, in addition to the existing voice and emoji replies. Just like in Inbox by Gmail, you can now use Google’s Smart Replies, which use machine learning, to automatically provide you with three possible answers to an incoming message. In addition, Wear 2.0 offers support for keyboards. Given the size of these watches, we’re talking about some seriously small keyboards here, so it remains to be seen how useful this feature will be. Google itself is offering its own swipeable keyboard, but Singleton tells me we’ll also see third-party keyboards for Android Wear. He also noted that Google had experimented with this when it first launched Wear two years ago. At the time, though, neither the software nor the watches were fast and reliable enough. Now, thanks to Google’s advances in machine learning, it’s often enough to just type a word or two and then have the keyboard guess the next word, making prolonged typing on your watch unnecessary. When Google first tried this feature, most users were only able to type a few words per minute. Singleton tells me this number is now up to the “tens of words per minute” and that Google’s testers report that it feels pretty fast. I don’t quite see myself using these small keyboards all that much, but I’ll reserve judgement until I’ve actually used this new feature. Also new in Wear 2.0 is handwriting recognition, which works just like you would expect it to. You can write single letters or join them together to form full words. The technology here is based on the same tools Google built for its handwriting input on Android. Like virtually all smartwatch platforms, Android Wear puts an emphasis on offering its users fitness metrics. “People want their watch to be a great coach,” Singleton told me. “Great coaches pay attention to what you’re doing and provide the right info at the right time.” To do this, Android Wear now has a better understanding of what you’re doing, thanks to the new Fit Platform Activity Recognition API, which can tell whether you are walking, running or cycling, for example. Based on this data, the watch can then automatically start the right application. If you start cycling, for example, it can automatically start Strava for you. This sounds like a handy feature, given that it saves you a few taps and ensures that you track your exercises with a bit more rigor than before. While messaging, fitness and the new design are the main new features of Wear 2.0, the team also added a bunch of other smaller features across the board. Applications can now directly access the network for example, without having to go through a phone. This means apps can now be installed right on the phone, too. If you have an Android Wear watch with built-in LTE support for example (like LG’s latest Watch Urbane), you could now start Spotify on the watch and stream music from the cloud right to your Bluetooth headset without having to bring a phone along when you go for a run (though I would worry about battery life…). That’s useful, but the main benefit here in the short run is for iPhone users, given that most Wear apps previously depended on the phone for their full functionality and that the differences between Android and iOS often made this an issue. 2016-05-18 20:16 Frederic Lardinois

24 WunWun founder Lee Hnetinka launches Darkstore, an on-demand delivery fulfillment platform Last May, Lee Hnetinka shut down his on-demand delivery service WunWun, which was a direct a competitor to Postmates, and then sold the company’s assets to Alfred , a TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2014 Battlefield alum. Fast forward to today and Hnetinka has teamed up with JustVacay founder Wilson Lee to launch Darkstore , a delivery fulfillment platform for e-commerce brands that is already powering same-day delivery for mattress startup Tuft & Needle. Starting today, anyone who wants to buy a Tuft & Needle mattress upon seeing it in the company’s San Francisco showroom can get one delivered that same day, as long as they place the order before 4 p.m. Previously, it would take one to three days for delivery. Darkstore’s target customers are direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands that don’t have local, brick-and-mortar stores but are looking to ship their products quickly. Darkstore works by exploiting excess capacity in storage facilities, malls and bodegas and enables them to be fulfillment centers with just a smartphone, Hnetinka told me. “Uber is the largest transportation company that doesn’t own a car Airbnb is the largest hospitality business that doesn’t own a hotel,” Hnetinka said. “We’re not going to take on real estate leases and we’re not going to run these warehouses ourselves, so we want to be the largest fulfillment company that doesn’t own a fulfillment center.” Darkstore doesn’t charge brands anything to store inventory, but charges 3% per item that leaves Darkstore, with a minimum of $2 and a maximum of $20. With Tuft & Needle, which sells mattresses for about $750, Darkstore charges them $20 for every mattress that goes out. For its first fulfillment center, Darkstore partnered with Storage SF, located in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood. SF Storage typically charges $1.79 a square foot, but Darkstore figured out that it could get the storage company $7.70 per square foot. That’s how they landed on a 70/30 revenue share, with 70% of the 3% Darkstore charges brands going to SF Storage. As long as Darkstore is picking the right brands, this model could work out pretty well for them. If Darkstore picks brands that don’t already fulfill a certain number of orders per week, Darkstore could end up in a tough spot where it’s storing all this inventory for free and not making any money because no one is buying anything from the brands. That said, Hnetinka says that before agreeing to store inventory for a brand, it confirms what the brand’s current order volume is in a given city so that Darkstore can gauge how much product they’ll move. For deliveries, Darkstore partners with Berkeley, Calif.-based Axle Hire, which charges $5 per delivery for small items and $10 per delivery for something like a mattress. Each brand is responsible for paying the delivery fee. At the end of the day, Darkstore is basically a platform that facilitates same- day delivery for e-commerce brands, and allows them to track their inventory, orders and deliveries. In order to get more brands on board, Darkstore is actively building plugins for e-commerce platforms like Magento, Shopify and BitCommerce. The idea for Darkstore came from a certain style of retail operations, called “dark stores,” in London and Taiwan. The dark store concept has not yet been brought to the U. S., Hnetinka said, and Darkstore wants to democratize it. “In Taiwan, the way it operates is, under bodegas there’s extra space, so virtual retailers store their stuff there,” Hnetinka said. “That’s where we got the idea to exploit excess capacity and not build the dark stores themselves.” With WunWun, the mission was to use stores as warehouses, which Hnetinka now says was a stop-gap. At the time, Hnetinka and the WunWun team were very tied to that mission. In hindsight, Hnetinka says he has realized that it’s important to look further ahead and know that the mission can change because of something like the market landscape changing, with several other players coming in and raising a boatload of cash, like Postmates, UberRUSH and Instacart. “The other thing is, technology is moving so quickly that now, people are no longer buying stuff from stores offline,” Hnetinka said. “They’re buying stuff from different guys. We look and see, what’s not needed is to power offline stores online. What’s needed is dark stores.” Right now, a lot of startups and companies are caught up with powering offline stores online, with the exception of Amazon, Hnetinka said. In looking at why Amazon is so successful, Hnetinka says it’s because Amazon gets you what you want, when you want it. “There’s no other dark store-like solution that exists,” Hnetinka said. “So, you either sell through Amazon or you don’t have fast delivery if you’re a direct to consumer e-commerce company.” But, I wondered why e-commerce, direct-to-consumer brands wouldn’t just use Amazon. Well, for one, brands are at risk of losing brand equity because Amazon doesn’t give much screen real estate to brands sold on its platform. Another reason, Hnetinka says, is because brands don’t want Amazon to own and have access to all of their inventory and sales data. Although Tuft & Needle sells its mattresses on Amazon, Darkstore is the only solution it can offer customers who walk into their show room and want to buy a mattress right away. “We think we can change the course of retail forever,” Hnetinka said. “And, in doing that, change the products that people have access to.” 2016-05-18 20:16 Megan Rose

25 Google shows off Duo, its new HD video calling app and answer to Apple’s FaceTime Some have criticised Google for falling behind when it comes to social networking and new communications services, but the company is how working hard to catch up. Today, the company announced a new video calling app called Duo — a high-definition app for Android and iOS devices. Duo was unveiled on the heels of Allo, Google’s new smart messaging app. Why the decision to launch two separate apps? A couple of reasons, it seems. The first is to keep the experiences simple and lightweight; and the second: to do something a little different from the rest of the pack. Facebook, for example, has supercharged Messenger with smart bots, as well as voice and video calling and more on top of its basic text messaging service. While Allo is focused on interacting with Google’s assistant bot and with potentially many friends and may be more comparable to something like Messenger, Duo’s comparison is something more like Apple’s FaceTime: you use it for one-on-one conversations. With the app only due to go live later this year — likely this summer, similar to Allo — among the details that Google is making public today is a preview feature, which gives users a real-time image of the person calling you before the call is actually connected. Google calls this Knock Knock. The other thing that Duo is touting is the engineering that has gone into making the video in the app work. Google says it will work the same whether your network is superfast or patchy. This in itself, if it really bears out, would be amazing for anyone who has cursed his or her way through a bad Hangout or Skype call. Duo was built by the same team that created WebRTC and it uses WebRTC, engineering director Erik Kay said today on stage at I/O. It was built using a new programming protocol, Quic , which Google unveiled last year as a route to speeding up data-heavy applications that travel over the web. While Google tells me that Hangouts will continue to exist as its own mobile app even with the launch of Duo and Allo, the fact that Hangouts comes with a history — some good, some bad — may also be why Google opted for a completely different branding and experience for Duo. As with Allo, Duo will let you connect with users in your phone book, offering us one more way to bypass our mobile carriers when making calls. It’s unclear whether it will interoperate with other video services. While Allo was uncovered months before now, it looks like Google has managed to keep Duo under wraps, with the only leak about an upcoming video app in recent times being of a Periscope-like competitor . 2016-05-18 20:16 Ingrid Lunden

26 The best of Highway1’s hardware accelerator demo day Highway1 is a rare breed of accelerator that has realized the companies that most need help are the folks who are doing the startup thing with hardware products. In the final-version- is-final world of hardware startups, the companies passing through the accelerator are facing some of the biggest challenges in the startup world today. Here’s a salute to the teams that survived the Highway1 summer 2016 program… If you have kids, you’re facing a challenge: Do you give them a mobile phone (with all the negative aspects that brings), or do you not? Okio falls in between, creating a communications device that is an awful lot like a phone, but much simpler, and far easier for kids to get their head around. Okio creates age-appropriate communication devices for parents to stay in touch with their children; it’s a simple voice messaging tool utilizing a smartphone app and a discreet device kept by the child. Designed by parents to fit into a child’s lifestyle, Okio is a unique wearable that is convenient and unobtrusive for children ages 5-12. I think Okio would really have to try hard to fail: They’re filling a gap in the market that hasn’t been properly addressed, and it feels like Okio have a product that parents have been clambering for a long time; it strikes the perfect balance between communication and letting your kids do their own thing, and having a way of communicating important messages without interrupting your kid in class seems like a no-brainer. If you’re looking to invest, this is my pick of the bunch. Hiding behind the genuinely an un-googleable (and therefore terrible) name, XO has a fantastic idea with the execution skills to match. The company aims itself at the fashion-conscious ‘gen Z’ 10-to-25-year-old consumers who have a passion for fashion and tech, hoping to merge the two. The company has an incredible track record, working with icons like Lady Gaga, Arcade Fire and the Black Eyed Peas, having been featured on stage at the Grammy awards. At the demo day, the company announced that they signed up Lady Gaga as an advisor to the company. I think the company has created a perfect storm of fashion and tech that is just itching to go mainstream viral. The company has built a platform to make it easy to create wearable technology clothing items at an affordable price point, and it’s easy to imagine high-street brands embracing its tech in huge marketing campaigns. If the company can get its messaging right and market its products in the right way to the right people, they’re going to make it huge. Blümio is a tremendously interesting startup that is trying to shake up the way blood pressure monitors work by adding a stick-on monitor using radar technology rather than an inflatable cuff. The company makes it possible to monitor a person’s heart health throughout the day. I think Blümio has positioned itself in a tremendously competitive market, but with a potentially huge pay-out at the end — heart health is a big topic, and while their technology still has a lot of challenges ahead of it before it’s ready for prime-time use, it’s definitely one to keep an eye on if you’re a medtech investor or medical device manufacturer. If the TV show Silicon Valley is to believed, every company wants to change the world. Sensassure didn’t mention that in their post (thank god), but that may just be the path they’re on. The company is tackling a challenge in senior care — specifically, with its Talli product, taking on the challenge of incontinence in elder care. Talli is a reusable sensor that sits on the outside of incontinence product, which wirelessly alerts caregivers when wetness is detected. In essence, it tells nurses when it’s time to change a diaper. It’s a huge market worthy of disruption. The team deserves a mention for its dedication, too: They’ve been living in nursing and care homes for the past year, to really get on the pulse of the challenges that this market is facing. I think Sensassure has a bright time ahead of it. It’s solving a very real — if not very sexy — problem in an industry that is both well-funded and desperately overlooked from a tech point of view. The company is certainly facing an adoption challenge, but it does find itself in the enviable position of being both needed and in a space where acquisitions are many and frequent. I’d be surprised if the company wasn’t facing a bright future. Aiming squarely at the always-worried-parents market, Cocoon Cam is a wellness camera and software platform that provides real-time insight on the safety and well-being of your baby. The company is able to detect heart rate, respiration and skin temperature of a newborn, all without having to attach scary medical sensors to the child. I think the company taps into a world of fears for first-time parents, which may just be enough to become a successful business. The company has shown tremendous hustle — including appearing at the White House to demo their product to the First Family of the United States — and is tapping into a staggeringly huge market. The team gets what’s at stake, and I’d be surprised if the company didn’t make a huge impact in the world of Tiny People Tech. Interestingly, the tech can be used beyond baby monitoring, too; the company showed off how they were able to detect signs of life on a sleeping inmate, which sparks some real inspiration; the technology can be used in all sorts of contexts. Coming slightly out of left field — or is that a reference to a different sport — is Courtmatics. The company is aiming to help athletes up their game. The first sport they’ve aimed their wizardry at is tennis, with a in-racket (!) Internet of Things device in the form of a ‘smart dampener’ to help coaches and players improve their game. The product tracks gameplay and streams data to a mobile app, where players can see their strengths and development areas. I think the product is more niche than some of the other ones presented today, but with “tennis players” as their audience, it’s certainly aimed at a generally affluent audience willing to spend the money. More interestingly, the company is aiming at a much broader audience than just tennis. Its name — Courtmatics — may just hold it back in its mission, but look beyond that, and you may just have a winner on your hands. If you’ve ever wished that bicycles had a common operating system, OpenBike is about to become your best friend. OpenBike is a connected bicycle ecosystem empowering the next generation of bicycle technology through an on-bike hardware product and software solution. One shared battery powers all accessories on the bicycle, charging your lights, your phone and other connected accessories. The platform enables interoperability between components, enables new features and integrates the hardware with apps and services in the cloud. I think cycling is becoming a bigger part of our urban lives, and having a smart bike makes an awful lot of sense. The company is working with Marin bikes to create a series of prototypes, and it’s easy to see how a more in- depth partnership might just leap-frog the competitors to market. I remain to be fully convinced that a bike really needs to be part of the Internet of things, but there’s no denying that there’s plenty of cyclists who are willing to spend real moolah on their two-wheeled friends — and OpenBike may just kick open the door to a big change in our ideas about what a bike ought to have in its accessory package. If you’ve ever found yourself thinking that VR isn’t reality-like enough, OBE by Machina — where OBE is short for Out of Body Experience — might just have the answer. The company has found a way to blend the digital and physical worlds to create an immersive gaming experience. The company’s first product enables users to feel and control virtual reality worlds. The jacket seamlessly integrates motion sensors, directional control and full- body haptic feedback into a single garment. In short, it’s some truly sexy shit, and Samsung seems to think so, too; they ordered 500 of the OBE jackets for trialling and demoing in its retail stores. I think OBE solves a problem I can’t really relate to; yes, haptic feedback seems like something that should exist, but I can’t really say it’s something that’s been missing from my life. They’re hoping to pair the experience with entry-level VR experiences like Samsung Gear or Google Cardboard, and I just can’t really see how there’s a need in this market for something like OBE — but, having said that, it’s cool enough that I’d be delighted to be proven wrong. The team behind Calliope is trying to bring the Internet of Things to your water usage. The company’s first product is Buoy, a connected water meter that gives homeowners real-time information about their water use, with a remote shut off in case of emergencies. Water consumption data is presented with actionable insights and notifications in a user-friendly app, enabling homeowners to achieve up to 20 percent reduction in water use, without a huge impact to their lifestyle. I think Calliope is thinking along the right lines, and that a big utilities provider may just see the need for the product in the marketplace. Having said that, they currently aim their product at consumers. To the utility companies, this may be a problem worth solving, but I have a hard time believing they’ll be able to find enough customers who care enough about the problem to build a viable business in the B2C space. Not one to waste any time, Highway1 is sending the hopeful companies into the world to spread their wings and do their things, and at the same time opened applications for the next Highway1 cohort. If that sounds like your sort of thing, get your applications in now. 2016-05-18 20:16 Haje Jan

27 Swiftkey’s newest keyword app, Swiftmoji, suggests emoji as you type SwiftKey, the smart keyboard app maker acquired by Microsoft for $250 million earlier this year, is now testing its next product, a predictive keyboard app called Swiftmoji. As you may have guessed by the name, this new app focuses on helping you quickly find and type the appropriate emoji to complement your text-based conversations. The app has just launched into a private beta test on Google Play , which means you can only try it if you opt in to become a beta tester. SwiftKey tells us that only a small number of people will be accepted into the beta. The company has not yet made a formal announcement about the app’s debut, and declined to provide more information when asked for details like its ETA to a public launch, plans for other platforms, and more. That being said, according to the app’s description on Google Play, Swiftmoji will automatically suggest the right emoji based on what you’ve just typed. These can be presented to you in one of two ways. One is the “Emoji Prediction Row,” which places a row of emoji suggestions just above the keyboard’s word suggestions. This row of icons can also be undocked and dragged around the screen, turning the suggested emoji into floating icons similar to Facebook’s chat heads. The app, like SwiftKey’s main keyboard, takes advantage of the company’s A. I. technology to understand the context of what you’re typing, as its emoji suggestions will update as you continue to type. The advantage to using a keyboard like this is that it can make the process of adding emoji to your conversations quicker. However, having it constantly updating with new emoji predictions could also make it a bit more distracting, thanks to the colorful nature of these little icons. In addition to emoji predictions, the keyword also offers word suggestions, the ability to customize your keyboard size, the option to use “flow” input (dragging your finger across the screen), and it lets you turn on or off other features like autocorrect, auto space prediction, quick periods (via double taps), and automatic capitalization. It’s not clear at this time if SwiftKey still considers this an experiment, or if it does have a roadmap that includes a public launch. If the former, it wouldn’t the first time that the company has trialed a new idea in the wild. In the past, it has released over experimental keyboards like SwiftKey Clarity , which focused on multi-word autocorrect, and SwiftKey Neural Alpha , which used neural networks instead of predictive algorithms to improve its words suggestions. These and others are products emerging from SwiftKey’s R&D hub “ SwiftKey Greenhouse ,” which tests new ideas to see how users respond. Notably, Swiftmoji is not listed on the Greenhouse site. While making access to emoji easier may seem like a silly thing to focus on, it’s actually fairly critical to text-based conversations. Emoji can help add back in the emotional context and meaning that’s lost when we’re unable to speak directly with another person and watch for facial cues. Fast access to emoji is also one of the touted features in Google’s newly launched iOS keyboard, , where emoji are available via keyword search, instead of just through scrolling. SwiftKey says it’s now looking into how information about Swiftmoji’s beta leaked and declined to say when it will make a public announcement. “Our official comment at this time is ,” TechCrunch was told. In the meantime, interested testers can try to join the beta here. If you can’t get in, you can sign up to be informed of its public launch here. Update, 3:30 PM ET: Post updated with more information provided by company about the size of the beta test group. 2016-05-18 20:16 Sarah Perez

28 Anti-Reddit platform Imzy partners with Lena Dunham to build online community for Lenny Letter It’s no secret that Reddit isn’t the best place on the Internet. In fact, its name has become synonymous with hate speech, racism, sexism and other terrible things. So, maybe getting let go from Reddit was a blessing in disguise for Dan McComas, the former SVP of product at Reddit. Since leaving Reddit, McComas has built Imzy , which aims to be a platform for healthy communities where its members are free from harassment and abuse. Already, the company has raised $3 million in funding from Charles River Ventures and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures. Today, Imzy is launching a partnership with Lena Dunham to form an online community for the Lenny Letter, an online newsletter started by Dunham and Jenni Konner with over 400,000 subscribers and a 65% open rate. Lenny Letter, in addition to comedian Dan Harmon, Feral Audio and Black Girls Talking , is one of Imzy’s first official partners. Official communities will be noted with a verified mark. “In my head, the ideal community would be Lenny Letter,” McComas told me. “They have an audience that is particularly passionate about something and one that doesn’t have a great place that really looks after them online. I thought Imzy would be great for that.” Imzy, which is still in private beta, currently has 10,000 people on the site — myself included — with 20,000 on the wait list. There are about 1,500 communities ranging from relationships to feminism to Black Lives Matter. McComas says the number of interactions are growing every day on Imzy, which will make its public launch next month. Other than McComas, Imzy has a founding team of five former Reddit employees, which includes Jessica Moreno, the former head of community at Reddit, Kaela Gardner, Alex Marinenko, Lesley Brownlee and Jaleh Afshar. The other member of the founding team is Josh Fraser, a former Twitter employee. “The problem that we’re directly trying to solve is we believe there’s no platform right now, no company that was started that is aligned well with community success,” McComas told me. “Every company right now that is trying to do communities online has their incentives to be a business in ways that work against the communities that are on their platform. They either need to be hyper-growth or ad focused. Ultimately you end up having to put the wrong people into communities to grow the communities.” As the Imzy community grows, and communities within the Imzy community foster, McComas wants to be really careful about how they’re growing. He also wants to make sure people don’t end up in the wrong community. “One of the cardinal sins of hurting a community is growing it at a pace that’s not right for the community,” McComas said. “We’re just trying to do everything we can to be with aligned with community as possible.” Being aligned with communities means focusing on the people who build the communities — the ones who play a key role in the early days of it. It also means focusing on identities, security, transparency and analytics. “Online, you have an interesting problem in that the people who run these communities tend to spend an inordinate amount of time managing these communities and end up having a full-time job,” McComas said. “In pre- existing things, you either need to find someone else to help you do it, or stop doing a good job because it’s taking too much time, or need to find a way to be compensated for doing the work.” Imzy’s developer platform will enable communities to evolve as they grow. Upon launch, Imzy might not have a way for communities to schedule events and take RSVPs for them. But, through the developer platform, someone could build that, hook a payment platform into it and then charge a few bucks to people who want to attend. The aim is to prevent community fragmentation while also enabling other communities on Imzy to benefit from the tools on the developer platform. Unfortunately, McComas says, you usually have to sacrifice parts of the community in order to be compensated. For example, on Reddit, you may see those who moderate online communities spending hours a day managing it. When there are a lot of people trafficking a community, there are bound to be those who want to take advantage of it, and might try to buy their way into the community for special treatment, McComas said. That may come in the form of someone paying a moderator to include their name in the comments, ban competing posts and let certain things slip through. That ultimately creates fractures within the community leadership and leads to a trust breakdown at all levels of the community. “Speaking as a long-time Reddit user, it happens a ton,” McComas said. “Tons, tons, tons, tons — it’s big business over there. And it’s a massive problem. Real community is so delicate. It’s such a delicate thing. To run a community as a media platform or advertising platform — I just really don’t think it’s ever going to end well. What you tend to see on other platforms is recurring problems and escalations of catastrophes, and they all can be boiled down to this one problem that the company’s incentives do not align with the community’s incentives.” With Imzy, the game plan is to build infrastructure for communities to manage themselves efficiently from the very beginning. Imzy has a tips platform that lets you reward great posts, and the team is also working on ways for communities to enable peer-to-peer transactions, crowdfunding and ultimately enable them with the tools to make money. That could be in the form of selling tickets for an in-person meetup or selling community swag and merchandise. Through Imzy’s developer platform, community members and leaders can tap into the toolsets to build the features they need, and then share them with the rest of the larger Imzy community. That way, McComas says, Imzy can evolve in a way that is necessary for the communities. In addition to providing monetization tools that align with the values of the community, policies are very important to Imzy’s mission. As head of community on Imzy, Moreno is tasked with making sure bad actors don’t get in and ensuring that certain types of communities don’t find a place on Imzy, like ones for porn, hate speech and harassment. That’s because Imzy has identified that those communities bring in higher than average bad behavior. Moreno is also responsible for working closely with communities and users to address their needs and build the tools they want. If the communities ask for something, and it’s something Imzy can do, Moreno told me, they’ll do it. “I really just want there to be a better atmosphere on the Internet in general,” Moreno said. That said, some bad actors from Reddit have found their way onto Imzy. What’s surprising, however, is that they’re behaving well on Imzy. Moreno’s theory is that if you treat people well and be nice to them, they’ll be nice to you, too. “There’s a possibility to shift the super harassment dynamic that’s out there right now,” Moreno said. “I’m hoping we can help do that — provide a place for people to hang out and enjoy themselves on the Internet.” Moreno’s experience at Reddit was subpar, to say the least. While working at Reddit, Moreno told me she received a slew insults about how she should be raped and murdered, and that her kids should be raped and murdered. Pretty fucked up stuff. In growing the broader Imzy community, getting diverse people on board as early as possible is another priority. “As conversations start to bleed over from community to community, and as problems arise, there has to be different voices contributing to the conversation,” McComas said. “I think we’re doing a pretty good job so far.” 2016-05-18 20:16 Megan Rose

29 Netflix launches its own speed test website, Fast.com Netflix wants you to know how fast your internet connection is, and has today launched a new website, Fast.com , that will give you that information. Basically, it’s a simplified speed test website that only focuses on download speed – as this is the metric that determines your video quality. The goal with the site is to help you figure out who’s to blame when you have a problem with your Netflix connection. It might not be Netflix’s fault, but rather your ISP slowing things down. The site itself is very basic. When you launch the webpage, it immediately begins running a test. There’s nothing to even click. The numbers increment in gray while the test is underway then become a solid black when it completes. Unlike other speed test sites on the web, Netflix’s site is not littered with ads to mar the experience. On the site, you can also click a link that lets you compare your speed to Speedtest.net. Arguably, there are other websites that are better for those who truly want to understand their connection speeds, as they can provide the ability to select a server, as well as view download and upload speeds, pings, and more. Of course, many mainstream consumers won’t know if the numbers Netflix’s Fast.com displays are good or bad. They may not even remember what internet package they had signed up for with their ISP. And the new site makes no attempt at helping you determine if your connection is slower than normal. Presumably, however, if you’re visiting the site to determine if there’s a problem, you’re prepared to take the issue to your ISP after completing the test. Or at least, that’s what Netflix hopes. According to the FAQ, the company says that if consumers aren’t getting the speed they’re paying for, “you can ask your ISP about the results.” Another difference between Fast.com and general purpose speed test websites is that it tests downloads from Netflix’s servers. It also works on web, tablet, phone, or even smart TVs that have a browser. As Netflix’s user base and usage have increased over the years, the company has worked to keep ISP’s competitive and honest with regard to their promised connection speeds. Already, the company maintains an ISP Speed Index, which ranks ISPs around the world based on their performance. However, Netflix’s Fast.com is different from this Speed Index, the company notes. While the Index measures average monthly speeds of actual Netflix streams during prime time hours, Fast.com will measure a user’s personal internet connection at any time. Speed is critical for maintaining a good quality of service, which is why these sorts of tools are important to the company. In addition to Fast.com, Netflix also recently debuted cellular data control tools that let consumers configure how much data Netflix’s mobile app uses. Fast.com is live now, and available to anyone worldwide. Even non-Netflix members can use the site. 2016-05-18 20:16 Sarah Perez

30 Space exploration will spur transhumanism and mitigate existential risk When people think about rocket ships and space exploration, they often imagine traveling across the Milky Way, landing on mysterious planets and even meeting alien life forms. In reality, humans’ drive to get off Planet Earth has led to tremendous technological advances in our mundane daily lives — ones we use right here at home on terra firma. I recently walked through Boston’s Logan International Airport ; a NASA display reminded me that GPS navigation, anti-icing systems, memory foam and LED lights were all originally created for space travel. Other inventions NASA science has created include the pacemaker, scratch- resistant lenses and the solar panel. These types of advancements are one of the most important reasons I am hoping our next U. S. president will try to jump-start the American space program — both privately and publicly. Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear any of them are talking about the issue. But they should be. As we enter the transhumanist age — the era of bionic limbs, brain implants and artificial intelligence — space exploration might once again dramatically lead us forward in discovering the most our species can become. Already SpaceX , led by CEO Elon Musk, has announced it will be tackling an unmanned trip to Mars in 2018. The hope, of course, is that within the next 10-15 years, astronauts will be stepping foot upon the red planet, too. If indeed, humans can make it to Mars — and I’m sure we will — much new tech would have to be developed for the mission. It’s safe to say much of that tech would likely be something useful for us eventually on Earth, as well. For example, just to even live in space for the journey — it’ll take approximately six months to travel one-way to Mars — new ways of sleeping , recycling breathable air and preserving foods and drink would likely have to be developed. Furthermore, the technology to withstand massive dust storms, freezing temperatures and a hostile environment on Mars would require new space suits and maybe even totally new materials. Innovation like this will benefit everyone — even if we don’t know all the uses yet for such radical tech. Of course, there are other reasons for prompting a renewed and significantly larger space program in America. One of the fundamental goals of my own presidential campaign has been warning the world of the incredible threat of existential risk. The Atlantic recently ran a story by Robinson Meyer that read: I think most people are totally unaware at how high the odds are that we screw up our species’ very existence. It’s so high, that the newly written Transhumanist Bill of Rights has a mandate for space exploration as one of its key six points. The facts of existential risk are simple: We may not be able to indefinitely keep the planet habitable , stop a super virus from killing everyone, avoid a mile-wide asteroid from crashing into Earth, elude a warmongering Terminator-like AI or circumvent blowing ourselves up with our 25,000 nuclear warheads — but we sure can get off this planet and create cool new places to live safely in outer space. The movie Elysium recently showed a dystopic but technologically plausible space habitat, where paradise is engineered in the skies — and not on Earth’s land or water. Now, no one wants to be forced into this scenario, but massive space habitats are worthwhile projects to pursue — and they could be possible to build in as little as 15 years. Mega-space habitats would also make an easier launch base for space mining, an industry booming with interest. Experts say it will soon be possible to mine asteroids from space — some that are worth billions of dollars each. Clive Thomson at Wired recently wrote that the asteroid Ryugu — partially made of up of nickel, iron and cobalt — could be worth up to $95 billion. As a science advocate, I’m strongly pro-space exploration from a private industry point of view. But just as importantly, I also passionately support a U. S. government-sponsored space program — one that gets approximately 10 times the funding it gets now (I’d get that extra money from our military budget, which is ridiculously oversized anyway). That would be nearly $100 billion a year, or about 5 percent of the U. S. 2016 Federal budget. Generally, my libertarian-minded self doesn’t want the government too involved in much of anything, but because space exploration involves defending against existential risk and pursuing medical innovation for citizens, I’d advocate for the U. S. putting dramatically more resources into space exploration. This wouldn’t mean entirely relying on federal programs to push forward the space industry, but also on government partnering with or investing in private space companies. Sadly, Congress will likely put up a fight against spending too much on peacetime space exploration — they do have that habit of being boring and shortsighted. So, perhaps the best way to grow America’s space industry is to sell Congress on the amount of benefits our nation might gain from a meaningful and dramatically enlarged space program. Generally, politicians — those directly responsible for funding (or not funding) NASA — see no upside for sending astronauts to space except national pride. But if Congress could be convinced that national security against existential risk, money from space mining and precious tech innovation for U. S. citizens would be gained by supporting space exploration, then maybe they would vote to enlarge NASA’s programs. This in turn would spur both the private space industry as well as transhumanism tech that makes all our lives better. This type of thinking should be a priority for whoever ends up in Congress and the White House come 2017. 2016-05-18 20:16 Zoltan Istvan

31 For democracy’s sake, UK tech staff need to vote in the EU Referendum When it comes to startups trying to scale across Europe one thing is abundantly clear: although the market of over 500 million citizens in the European Union is far greater than the US’s 323 million , European startups are hobbled by fragmentation in jurisdictions, legislation and languages. With the caveat that language will always be an issue, it would seem simply logical to come up with a system to allow companies to capture that large, well-educated market in a scalable way. It’s not been easy. It’s not been that fast. But The European Union has at least managed to harmonize many of the laws surrounding company operation, so that startups don’t have to with all 28 jurisdictions at once. Hiring within the EU has been made much easier by the EU’s agreements. Fundraising has been made much easier across borders. What startup in Western Europe has not taken advantage of the exceptional talent to be found in Eastern European member states? What Eastern European startup has not taken advantage of VCs in the West? I see it happen every day. But let’s not assume that the European Union has been all roses. Let’s hear from the startups themselves. What soundings have been taken so far? Earlier this year UK tech startup industry body Coadec released the results of a survey. To gauge the opinion of the UK’s tech startups, it consulted startup founders, and people who invest in and work in the UK’s startups. The survey found that 81% of respondents said the UK should remain a member of the European Union (the sample size was 175 startups). For those who said the UK should remain, the key issues were: • Access to a large single market, with harmonised regulations • Free movement of labour, giving access to a talented workforce • Having a ‘seat at the table’ • Stability and security • For those who said the UK should leave the EU, the key issues were: • Sovereignty • Over-regulation and red tape Overall the results of the survey above were not surprising. The UK’s startup community is international in its outlook and composition. The UK is jam- packed with Founders from across Europe (and the world). Access to Europe means access to talented staff and access to a trading block of 500 million consumers, even before you begin engaging with the rest of the road. Yes, many said the EU is far from perfect, regulation can be tricky, and most agree that the pace of change at the EU level too slow. But overall, said Coadec, the benefits of access to the single market, harmonized regulations and free movement of labour, outweighed the costs. It therefore came out for a ‘remain’ vote. Meanwhile, a survey by Tech London Advocates , found that 87% of those surveyed wanted the UK to remain in the EU; and software industry body techUK found that 71% of its members wanted to remain in a reformed EU. So, the tech industry has been surveyed. The arguments have been put. But it’s TechCrunch’s position not to be in favor of one political position. We simply believe that the UK referendum on membership of the European Union is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that cannot be ignored. We don’t plan to tell anyone how to vote. But we do think that for the UK tech community to have its say on this incredibly important and historic decision, every tech worker, from the biggest international company right down to the scrappiest startup, should come out and vote. And since many startups are created by young people today, the decision on the future of Britain’s role in Europe will have far-reaching consequences for this community. It is they who should be at the forefront of this decision. Not the people who have already “made it” and will likely have a healthy economic buffer against any adverse effects of a “Brexit”, whether you think there will be any or not. The effects of the EU vote will have an impact for years and years to come, and on the many new and young startups being created today. Yet on current polling, this demographic is reportedly the least likely to vote. That could be a tragedy for democracy. Given the nature of technology, with servers in the cloud humming away, tech staff ought to be able to take a half day, or even day off work without anything breaking. So, to that end, TechCrunch is declaring it’s hand: We want tech people in the UK to vote. Let’s make June 23 in the UK “Tech Vote Thursday”. We want all tech companies to allow staff time off to vote. It’s up to you how long: a half day, a whole day and a party! Knock yourselves out! Just make sure everyone has a chance to contribute to this incredibly important decision. Whatever you do, vote for Tech on Thursday, June 23. 2016-05-18 20:16 Mike Butcher

32 PornHub launches BangFit so you can bang to get fit In seemingly bizarre news out of the porn industry, PornHub is launching a new fitness system (wearable + workout videos) called BangFit. As its name suggests, it helps you bang to get fit. Here’s how it works: Users can join the game at this website , which will allow users to then sync the game to their phones. BangFit offers options for one player, two players, and three players. From there, you can choose your ‘sexercise’, with information about how each position burns calories (man vs. woman) over a thirty-minute period. That’s where the BangFit Band comes into play. Users can pop their phone into the BangFit Band (a belt worn by one player) to measure their success in getting fit while getting busy. For now, PornHub says the BangFit Band is going to be available soon, and that the software product is in beta. I tried to pair two phones with the web app and check it out, but the webapp failed to recognize one of the two phones as paired. I also can’t seem to figure out if this thing supports gay and lesbian couples. That said, this is a fun marketing stunt for PornHub. The company has an early foothold in VR, and is wont to pull fun tech- related marketing stunts like an emoji porn texting service . Check out the video below: 2016-05-18 20:16 Jordan Crook

33 Right-sizing the development process for startups As the co-founder of a “142-proof” software development agency in the Silicon Valley catering to pre- and post-money companies, I’ve observed quite a bit of variance when it comes to the development process. The capabilities range wildly, from hack-and-slash “oh shit commits” all the way to buttoned-down tests and infrastructure that makes us all giddy when we see it. It’s pretty much The Good, The Bad and The Fugly. It boils down to the core competencies of the team and the experience of the technical leadership. What amazes me is how many of these companies start up doing it wrong. Granted, startup companies are under the gun to hurry up and build a great product and find relevance in the market. Never mind about the shiny bells and whistles involved with how it got produced. In the first few chapters of The Lean Startup , Eric Ries explains how they honed their process such that any developer could commit code to production on their first day at work. This does not mean they gave the new geek the keys to the kingdom and the power to destroy the service. It means the tech team has enough process in place, as well as checks-and- balances, that nobody can break things — not even a newbie. The challenge that many enterprises face is a lack of innovation and a slow response to change. Some large companies are trying to adopt “agility at scale” in the enterprise, or set up “intrapreneuer” programs to innovate. However, these enterprises tend to be the exception. The upper hand startup companies have is that they have a chance to do it right the first time… but the reality is that many do not. The economics of time/talent/capital for startups means that most are running 5,000 MPH toward a goal — and leaving a wake of technical debt behind them. “But what is this ‘doing it right’?” you ask. Simply put, it means code that is continuously tested and integrated whenever an engineer commits code to the source repository. The most popular alternative is some mix of: The adopted solution to house parties is automated user interface testing, aka: end-to-end, or functional testing. This is best achieved by building these tests from Day 1 of a project instead of waiting and back-filling them at a later point in time. Requirements or user stories are translated into tests that exercise each feature, under each possible user persona. Needless to say, I’m bullishly anti-house-party when it comes to testing for quality. You can have all of these awesome tests, and developers can certainly run them in their working environment, but the key is to continuously run them in a test server environment or a continuous integration (CI) server. Each time an engineer checks code into the repository, the CI server wakes up and gets to work. Ideally, unit tests are run first, because they run much faster, and then the functional tests are run. For large applications, the CI server can break up and ideally parallelize the functional tests to save time. An automated test cycle that takes too long is not of use; I’ve put the upper bound at 15-20 minutes for a max test cycle. Obviously, shorter is always more productive for the team. By building these tests, an automated web browser can drive the user interface and make sure it still works as intended. This keeps the codebase from moving backwards in production, and stops the presses until it’s resolved, or until they “fix the build.” Many dev shops I’ve visited have a special monitor in the room that turns red, and I’ve seen a USB traffic light that is evidence of the build’s health. Besides environmental indicators of the build, I’ve seen other variations on maintaining quality — such as passing around a My Little Pony and placing it shamefully on the desk of the engineer who broke the build, such as the geeks do at Say Media. I prefer positive reinforcement — after the sprint demo, a medium-sized trophy adorned with Mardi Gras beads is awarded to the geek with the best feature of the week, such as the geeks do at Lyft. The benefit of emphatic testing at the user-interface level is an increase in product quality. This is because each UI test is akin to a contract that cannot be broken. If the tests are evolving with the requirements, they serve as a watchdog to make sure we’re not rolling backwards. In chatting with geeks about where to spend the most time testing early on in a company or project, I always tilt toward the user interface because it inevitably exercises all the other layers. If the UI works, the underlying layers are probably doing it right. The exception is where the product is an API, where unit tests are going to be the way to go. Really, in a perfect world, functional and unit tests should be in place from the get-go. A challenge with startups is that the product continually changes; that is often the byproduct of the Build/Measure/Learn cycle. Therefore, at what stage is it right to overlay end-to-end tests? This is an open-ended question that I still ponder. When a company really has no idea of what it should build, it seems of limiting value because there probably are not enough users on the system where quality is of concern. When the company knows what it needs to build, but the roadmap seems so daunting and talent so limited, it seems only natural to skip functional tests “for now.” But quality should ALWAYS be of concern, right? In the end, the trade-off is going to be a longer build cycle, but not 2x. I’d guesstimate it adds ~33 percent more to a project to have good functional and unit tests; therefore, on a two-week sprint this is at most days, not weeks. So rather than “hurry up and get a product out there,” I favor “slow down and do it right, because we are probably living with the new features of this release for a long time.” The payout is clearly down the road on the efforts of good testing. It creates a codebase that is delightful to work with for future engineers. It creates a codebase which lives longer, is easier to refactor and can stand the test of time. The idea that I’d like to leave behind for startup founders and lead techies is to “Please! Please! Test Your User Interface.” Do this early in your progression and the payouts will be plentiful down the road. 2016-05-18 20:16 Dave Gullo

34 Google asks the Internet for N-words – what could possibly go wrong? What’s worse than asking the Internet at large to name your product? Telling them it has to start with N. Let’s just take a moment to appreciate the stupefying magnitude of Google’s naivete here. I mean, right off the bat, asking the Internet for help with naming something is a losing proposal. Just ask Boaty McBoatface. Accountability is in short supply online, so as we’ve seen again and again, any poll or user-reliant measure without very strict controls is almost guaranteed to be gamed or spoiled if it attracts any attention whatsoever. It’s heartwarming, really, to think that somewhere in this decadent and dissipated age, there is an entire room of people who thought asking the Internet for words that start with N was a good idea. God bless all ye pure- hearted fools! But seriously, this really does argue that at some high level, Google’s team is totally oblivious to certain things. For all the talk about diversity, it says a lot that in none of the meetings in which crowdsourcing an N-word was discussed did someone say “You’ve got to be kidding me. We’ll have to hire full-time moderators to keep one word out of the running.” That or they were not listened to, or did not feel comfortable objecting. None of these situations speaks well of the process that resulted in this absurd campaign. I mean, it’s not really that big a deal, but come on. At least it’s not broadcasting name suggestions live. In fact, if you look at the FAQ , the whole thing is “for entertainment purposes only.” So Google has just commissioned the largest list of variations on racial slurs ever compiled for, really, no reason at all. My humble request: someone at Google, please secretly record the postmortem meeting on this boondoggle. Send to [email protected]. 2016-05-18 20:16 Devin Coldewey

35 Google Cardboard platform picks up steam with 50M app downloads to date The amount of Google Cardboard app downloads has doubled in just the past four months. Today, onstage at I/O, Google’s head of VR, Clay Bavor, announced that the company had seen downloads on the Google Cardboard platform from the Google Play store grow to 50 million from just 25 million downloads in January . “We think that’s pretty good for what is, after all, just a piece of cardboard,” Bavor said onstage. Google last reported that over 5 million Cardboard headsets were in consumer hands. Bavor didn’t offer any updated metrics on the sheer amount of actual headsets out there today, other than reiterating there were “millions and millions” of them out in the wild. Other mobile VR makers have a long way to go to catch up with Google’s effortless VR platform. Samsung announced last week that the company had over 1 million users on their Gear VR platform last month, but also specified that there were only 250 apps on the Oculus store for the headset. Google announced a host of things related to its virtual reality aspirations today, including a low-latency Daydream VR mode in Android N and a new reference design for future Google Cardboard hardware. 2016-05-18 20:16 Lucas Matney

36 FileHippo News - powered by FeedBurner The Chromium developers have stated that the change from Flash to HTML5 shows the maturity of HTML5 and its ability to provide an excellent user experience. Flash used to be critical for rich media content, however the developers have explained that in many cases today, HTML5 offers a more integrated media experience along with faster load time and less power consumption. Chrome will come with Flash play pre-installed in the browser, but that will be hidden from being used by sites. It will also have HTML5 set as the default browsing experience (if available), where flash is needed chrome will prompt the user – with a Firefox inspired prompt bar at the top of the screen – to allow the user to decide if they want to allow or block flash content. Chrome will save the user’s decision for future visits to that site. The user will also be able to change their preferences if they wish to unblock Flash on a site. Google are also going to whitelist the Flash content of the top 10 sites visited by users to minimise prompting and irritation to users. This whitelist will only be implemented for a year to help users adapt to the now HTML5 experience. They say that the list will be updated periodically, removing sites with no longer warrant the exception. Google is looking to implement the “HTML5 by Default” by the fourth quarter of 2016. You can see their draft proposal here. Google has said that they are going to be working with other browser venders and tech companies to try make the transition from Flash to HTML5, hopefully getting rid of flash all together in the future. With the security risks that Flash pose, the complete end of Flash cannot come soon enough. Perhaps this time it really will be the final nail in the coffin for Flash. Time will tell. The post Chrome To Kill Flash By Default In Future appeared first on FileHippo News . Television shows have a fun history of producing a live episode from time to time, which gives long-time fans a chance to see their favorite characters “wing it” on prime time. The end result is often a fun, “it’s anybody’s ball game” atmosphere that produces a memorable episode. Of course, the recent popularity of Grease Live! –a full-length live production that aired earlier this year–and the excitement about the upcoming Hairspray Live! and even Rocky Horror Live! have brought new audiences to the entertainment value of live television. But it’s a little different when an animated show plans to get in on the fun, mostly because the show’s animation team really hates it when they’re asked to draw that fast. Fortunately, the era of the hand-drawn frame-by-frame animated series isn’t exactly the same as a 21st century production. While it’s certainly not as easy as just clicking a button, the multi-frame strip of the original cartoons isn’t the same format. Now, thanks to Adobe, a live episode of an animated series is not only more feasible, it’s (sort of) already happened. Thanks to a new app from Adobe that works with Adobe After Effects CC, Adobe Character Animator helped produce a three-minute segment during an episode of The Simpsons that aired this past weekend. Homer, voiced by Dan Castellaneta, took call-in questions from fans of the show and answered them in real-time, complete with Homer-esque animation. It works by syncing the animated character’s lip movements with those of the actor producing the voice so that the effect seems to be be the animation talking live. HOW? According to the Adobe Blog , “Believe it or not, the process is relatively simple, with the right tools. Castellaneta delivered the live performance and Adobe Character Animator (a relatively new feature in After Effects CC , part of Creative Cloud ) made the magic through realistic lip sync and keyboard-triggered animations. The talented teams at Fox and The Simpsons had early access to the upcoming version of Character Animator, which debuted (and will ship soon … keep an eye out) when our Digital Video and Audio team barnstormed the NAB trade show.” While the software itself will be released later this year, don’t go looking for a full-length live animated movie anytime soon. The post Adobe Pulls Off Live Episode Of Animated Show appeared first on FileHippo News . If you already use WhatsApp on your phone, or via the WebApp extension for either iOS or Windows, it’s pretty much more of the same. In real terms, the desktop app is just WhatsApp installed on your Pc or laptop, an extension of your smartphone, and works exactly the same. And that’s not a bad thing. As WhatsApp say themselves: “Like WhatsApp Web, our desktop app is simply an extension of your phone.” The app literally mirrors the conversations and messages from your mobile device and it’s all synced, so you can switch between either seamlessly, and with next to no hassle. But, unfortunately, you do need your phone to access WhatsApp for desktop, and yes, your phone needs to be connected to the internet for it all to work. But for most people, this won’t be an issue, as let’s be honest, these days most people are hardly ever without their phone, so it’s only a minor issue, if an issue at all. If there is a difference, it’s that WhatsApp desktop allows for much longer messages to be written faster and you can share and images etc., faster, because you have a full size keyboard and all the advantages that using a PC or laptop have by default. And just like the phone app, the new desktop version lets you message away with friends, family, and colleagues. The real difference, is that you can just alt-tab whenever you need to write messages or keep up with an online chat while your phone doesn’t need to come out of your pocket. I found the desktop app very similar to the Web App that’s been around for a while, and having the same access desktop notifications, and keyboard shortcuts, is, I feel, a nice touch. WhatsApp for desktop is fast and responsive, and it also comes with the same standard encryption as default that the Facebook owned WhatsApp turned on for all its users earlier in the year. The document sharing feature while standard on most desktop and mobile messaging apps, is another nice feature of WhatsApp for desktop. If there is a downside to WhatsApp for desktop, it’s that I found the whole verification part of the install a bit fiddly and annoying, but I’m glad I stuck with it, because it’s worth it in the end. With more than a billion users worldwide, WhatsApp has proved it’s good at what it does, and for me, it’s a useful and agile little app to have on your computer. You can download WhatsApp for Windows and Mac now from FileHippo ! The post WhatsApp For Desktop. Better Than The Phone Version? appeared first on FileHippo News. In all of its different variations, from international megastar Grand Prix racing to a local hometown dirt track event, auto racing is an exciting sport. It pits both human power and mechanical capability against a field of competitors with nearly equal footing in terms of mechanics, and the end result is an entertaining, often nail biting display of instinct and ability. Except when a software glitch causes a $2.6 million race car to lose power in the middle of a 200-mile per hour event. That was the case yesterday with Fernando Alonso had to literally pull over during the 2016 Spanish Grand Prix Formula One World Championship on the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. Driving a McLaren with software powered by Honda engineers, Alonso had to drop out of the race on his home team course and forgo any points in the series from this race. But the reality isn’t quite as dramatic as some tweets made it sound. It’s one thing to be puttering along at 250mph or so and have the power to the vehicle simply cease. Alonso’s team had been informing him of the issue prior to the failure, and the driver himself reported that he had no information on his gauges prior to the failure. He’d been racing blind, in fact, without even knowing his speed; he had to use other competitors’ positions to maneuver and adjust. There is also good news on this front for the uber-expensive car: there was initial concern that engine failure caused Alonso to drop out, but that was not the case. From there, the concern was that suddenly stopping a Formula 1 race car due to the power loss could also overheat (and therefore, cook) the engine and other key systems, but that also seems to have been checked out and cleared. Despite the as-of-yet explained software issue, the car’s engine seems to be doing great, and has even been cheered by team management for its durability over the course of the last four Formula 1 races, an apparently uncommon feat for the type of wear the race puts on the vehicle. The post Software Glitch Kills Formula 1 Car Mid-Race appeared first on FileHippo News . Credit cards and debit cards are such a way of life–due to their convenience and the perception that they’re safer than carrying cash or writing a check–that “swiping it” is second nature to most Americas. But with the shift to the EMV cards that Europe has had in place for a decade or better, US consumers and retailers alike are feeling the pinch of a frustrating new payment mechanism. On the surface, it might seem like a fairly petty problem, but the rollout of the new chip credit cards–which require a motion referred to as “dipping” instead of swiping–has been slow to happen and irritating on both the sellers’ and the buyers’ ends. It’s not just that the October 2015 deadline has come and gone and many retailers still don’t have EMV-capable point of sale credit card systems. Instead, it’s the lengthy delay–okay, it’s actually just a few seconds, but it feels like an eternity when you’re the one holding up the line–involved in reading and processing the chip that has new card holders up in arms. It’s tempting to think that this is nothing more than old-fashioned “me first” mentality, but the issue is the consumers who believe the chip isn’t reading and therefore take the card out, reinsert it, cancel the transaction, or otherwise hold up the process. Even many cashiers aren’t accustomed to the slightly longer process involved in reading the card, and the end result has been even longer delays. Fortunately, one company is already at work on software that will make the chip reading process go faster, hopefully reducing the misunderstanding of the new cards. However, one retail giant is already taking the EMV process to court. Walmart has filed suit against Visa over the EMV cards, but it’s not the delay that’s got them upset. Debit card providers have long offered the option to let consumers sign for the purchase instead of entering their PIN numbers, a choice that ends up costing the retailer money. The transaction fee for a PIN-based debit card purchase is less than the fee if the consumer signs the receipt, treating it like a credit card. Some card companies even offered their customers incentives in extra points or cash back bonuses if they signed for their purchases instead of entered their PIN numbers. But with the rollout of the EMV cards, Walmart is pushing back against the signature option. While the retailer does stand to save a lot of money if they no longer let chip debit card holders sign for purchases (five cents on every single Visa EMV card transaction, to be exact), they claim it’s also about security. A stolen chip card that can be authorized via the thief’s signature is no more secure than a magnetic stripe card. The purpose of the EMV launch for to rollout some of the higher security of the European “chip and PIN” system. The post EMV Woes Plague Consumers, Retailers appeared first on FileHippo News . The software has been worming its way into Windows PCs using Windows Updates and antagonistic malware-like methods and regular pop-up reminders since it was released last Summer. Get Windows 10( or GWX in Microsoft parlance) as well as being somewhat annoying, has received a lot of criticism for quietly downloading and installing Windows 10 automatically, in the background without users permission. Fortunately, “Get Windows 10” is going to desist from offering its upgrade and disappear into the night, according to representatives, in July. The dying act will correspond with Microsoft terminating this free offer and upgrade to Windows 10 by mid-July this year. On Friday, a representative of the software giant said: “Strategic measures have been established and are being finalized, but by the end of July, the Get Windows 10 app, which is responsible for facilitating the upgrade to Windows 10, will be disabled and ultimately detached from PCs worldwide. Just as it was time-consuming to ramp up and set off the software, it will as well take some time to ramp it down.” But one thing is clear: the free upgrade in its current form is definitely ending. Users who have fought hard against Microsoft moving them forcibly onto Windows 10 can now relax. Windows 10 will no longer be installed onto their machines surreptitiously without their consent. Now if they want to upgrade, they will have to pay for the OS. In other news from Microsoft, the company will continue to eliminate Windows Vista’s security fixes by April 11, 2017; Windows 7 by January 14, 2020; and January 10, 2023, for Windows 8 – otherwise you will have to cut a special deal with Redmond if you need longer support. Good luck with that… The post “Get Windows 10” message will soon be extinct appeared first on FileHippo News . But it is undeniably great timing for them too, and good news for laptop and PC users worldwide, as they also just recently hit their 1 billion user milestone, which is quite impressive if we’re honest The desktop app is very similar to WhatsApp Web (which was released in January 2015) in many ways, however it now supports desktop notifications and keyboard shortcuts (which are always awesome). WhatsApp said: “Like WhatsApp Web, our desktop app is simply an extension of your phone: the app mirrors conversations and messages from your mobile device.” Yes, unfortunately, you need your phone to access it and yes, your phone needs to be connected to the internet. WhatsApp Desktop and WhatsApp Web is not supposed to be an alternative to your phone but rather a more convenient way of sending messages and files to friends, family and colleagues while you are busy on your computer. This allows their 1 billion users to stay connected even while working. To access your messages, you need to scan the QR code from your WhatsApp on your phone, which is a very good security measure, and takes just a few seconds, and also made me feel very high tech about the whole thing. Obviously there are a few features that are lacking at this point (as with any new application), but over time as they improve the app should get better and there will be more features introduced. Overall, what WhatsApp have done, works very well on the whole. The release also comes at just the right time for me, as it ties in very nicely with their recent added encryption protocol that is turned on by default for all its users. WhatsApp have down a good job on the app, and it does work on the desktop. I guess the real question is who’ll use it when they have their phone right next to them in any case. Still, I like it. The post WhatsApp Makes The Jump To Desktop! appeared first on FileHippo News . Yep, that’s right, the clock really is ticking for users wanting to upgrade their viable computers for free to Windows 10. Microsoft announced on their official blog that the free upgrade offer for Windows 7 and 8 users will officially expire on July 29 th 2016. After that, users will have to purchase the full version of Windows 10 if they want to upgrade. Microsoft originally provided Windows 10 upgrades free to users who already had copies of Windows 7 or 8 starting on the new operating systems release date of July 29 th 2015. Since then, Microsoft has now claimed that Windows 10 is active on 300 million devices and that they will be ending the free upgrades to their new OS on the anniversary of its initial release. As Richard Hay notes in a post on winsupersite , current installs of Windows 10 will be available, “for the supported lifetime of the device”, meaning that if you already have Windows 10 on a given piece of equipment, such as your laptop, you will be able to continue using it until the device no longer works. This will apply even if you have to perform a re-install of Windows on the device due to a disruptive error. The difficulty will come with installing Windows on new devices that have never had an installation of Windows 10. If you install a retail version of Windows 7 or 8 on a new device after July 29 th , that device will not be eligible for a free upgrade. Instead you will have to either buy an upgrade key or buy a retail version of Windows 10 and install it instead. If you want to use Windows 10 but aren’t sure if the upgrade is right for you, you still have until the July 29 th 2016 to make a decision. That might seem like a long time, but don’t let the thought slip away or you may find the expiration date casting a shadow on your computer. The post Clock Counting Down On Free Windows 10 Upgrades appeared first on FileHippo News . As social media grows from public outreach to actual news sourcing (much to the outrage of broadcast and print journalists across the world), some apparent bias has been revealed regarding Facebook’s unique news tool: the ‘Trending News’ feed. We all know it for cycling stories of varying style and substance, but recent revelations indicate conservative leaning posts may be discouraged or, even, outright rejected. Gizmodo takes credit for the early research and interview work on both Facebook’s ‘Trending News’ methodology and, far more specifically for the purposes of this article, these potential shenanigans Facebook’s response, though, is predictable and can be cited by The Guardian. Facebook is quoted as claiming ‘Trending News’ is only dominated by topics that have lately become popular on Facebook, regardless of mounting evidence to the contrary. Gizmodo’s interviewees indicate that contracted employees working for Facebook were given Orwellian levels of authority regarding what was blocked from ‘Trending News’ for Facebook users. This authority was allegedly used to suppress certain politically Right-leaning topics and stories. This stands in a stark contrast to Facebook’s claims of only posting what matters to users: not personalized political views masking as trends. The implications are dark and dazzling, but it would seem that Facebook has (intentionally or not) made concerted efforts to impede the spread of knowledge based on political ties. Regardless of Facebook’s political leanings and lobbying outside of its social media platform, which we can take as a given, it’s not something many commenters expected to find being pushed inside the social media behemoth. One worries about the fate of the world so bound to social media for news, given the now apparent bias tied to such news sourcing. The post Facebook Deliberately Restricts Conservative News – Allegedly appeared first on FileHippo News . It’s a sad day when a corporation has to make an announcement like this, and even sadder when word gets out that a really cool platform is on the chopping block. This week, Disney announced that not only will they be ending the Infinity video game project, but they will also be shutting down the software company that developed it, putting some 300 people out of work. Why would Disney do this to both the employees and the fans? Because they’re not stupid. Not to disparage Infinity in any way, it’s a really cool concept in taking kids’ favorite movies and combining them with gaming action and a little plastic figurine. And at its launch, Disney was producing a product that was truly innovative in terms of melding entertainment and gaming. But Disney’s look at the numbers just didn’t add up. Gaming in the US is a $22.41 billion a year industry , with four out of five households having some form of technology for playing video games; admittedly, most of that is happening on PCs, but dedicated game consoles come in second place with 51% of US households having at least one, and 56% of gamers using a console for regular weekly play. So with this much game play going on, why couldn’t Disney keep up? The trend is shifting away from this kind of play on a dedicated console. While game consoles may have a solid footing in the market, smartphones (and tablets) aren’t far behind. Kids like the portability of their devices, and lugging the Playstation on a ten-hour drive to Grandma’s house isn’t in the cards. This isn’t to suggest that Infinity wasn’t a great product, and Disney will still be the first to say so. But the numbers on the game’s division of the company weren’t producing the expected (or necessary) results. Rather than sink more money into a project when the consumer trend is shifting, Disney’s pulling the plug. But what about the four new product lines that are currently sitting in boxes in a giant warehouse like the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark? Those are still coming to market, and Disney will still be supporting the inventory for the other Infinity lines that are also taking up valuable shelf space. But as for the infinite nature of Infinity, well, that’s no longer what that word means. The post Disney Drops Infinity Video Game appeared first on FileHippo News . 2016-05-18 19:28 feeds2.feedburner

37 Trojan hijacks search results to generate advertising revenue There’s a Trojan out there that forces infected computers to automatically click on advertising banners. By doing so, its creators are earning money while businesses paying to be seen are just burning a hole in their budgets without achieving anything. Those are the results of a new report by security firm Bitdefender , which has identified the Trojan as Redirector. Paco. According to the company’s press release, the Trojan has, since 2014, infected 900,000 machines. It’s most present in India, Malaysia, Greece, the USA and Italy, and works like this: once a machine is infected, its internet configuration settings are changed so that search results on engines like Google or Yahoo are forwarded to a third party, controlled by the attackers. The server would then retrieve results and add advertising, earning botnet operators money. "This particular campaign is mostly detrimental for private companies that pay for advertising impressions and clicks", states Bogdan Botezatu, senior e-threat analyst at Bitdefender. "Google’s AdSense for Search program places contextually relevant advertisements on custom search results pages and shares a portion of its advertising revenue with AdSense partners. In this particular case, the botnet operator is utilizing publisher identities to operate as a Google AdSense partner and collect the money from clicks on poisoned search links". Researchers say infected users don’t lose money directly, but this Trojan does allow botnet operators to inject malicious code (ransomware, for example) if they want to. They also own the search results for the victim’s computer. Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved. Image credit : wk1003mike / Shutterstock 2016-05-18 18:53 By Sead

38 What Student Developers Want How do student developers feel about their career options? Devpost has just published its second annual Student Hacker Report based on a survey of students from US university students participating in its hackathons. Devpost, which changed its name from ChallengePost last summer, is known primarily from running contests and hackathons, both online and in person. While its first Student Survey looked at the technologies and APIs used by students by analyzing metadata from hackathons, this year's survey used a more direct methodology. Over 12 weeks of the spring 2016 hackathon season, Devpost asked US students to answer 3 or 4 different questions about recruiting every time they submitted a hackathon project and in total surveyed over 1,700 students at 80 hackathons. 83% of students said they were looking for fulfilling careers, rather than simply for jobs. Students predict that they’ll stay at later jobs for 5 years on average. Students expect to earn between $70–150K right out of school. Regarding applying for jobs, 42% of students said writing cover letters and résumés was their least favorite part of job hunting while 25% said behavioral and technical interviews were their least favorite part. On the whole, the respondents would prefer to be judged by their work and 65% of students said they’d prefer a take home coding project versus a technical interview. With regard to résumés they ranked education much less important than projects and experience: When considering a job the factor that matter most to students are the people they will be working with. The report, in a section targeted at recruiters, states: Developers care more about your team than your perks. It’s easy to fix a broken ping pong table, but it’s not so easy to fix a broken development team. Additionally, many students said they believed people and culture are the same thing. Your developers are the best recruiting asset you’ve got. Get them involved and in front of developers whenever you can: career fairs, phone screens, interviews, conference talks, mentoring, etc. Students want to meet those they will be working with prior to accepting an job offer to find out how well they interact with each other and what they consider the favorite parts of their jobs. A statistic that might bring about an improvement both for recruiters and students is that 68% of students have looked for a job at a hackathon. "Hackathons are a crucial way to discover talent, and to get a look not just at what candidates say on their resumes but at what they build. Similarly, we believe companies must improve their careers sites and job listings so that developers can get an inside look at the people and learning opportunities that exist at each company. This is what our new Team Pages allow companies to do. " Team Pages is currently in beta in New York City and directly tackles another issue identified in the survey - the difficulty finding desirable job opportunities due to lack of information. It allows developer teams which have openings for new members to provide just the information students are looking for - including what current team members think of the companies they work for and how the interview process works. Around 20 companies are participating in the free beta, with 1 to 6 jobs at each one and the format gives them with a great way to communicate important facts about themselves, their engineering team, and specifics jobs and providing developers with an inside look at development teams that are hiring. 2016-05-18 18:49 Written by

39 Stardock announces the release of popular desktop organization software Fences 3 Today, Stardock released Fences 3, the latest version of its popular desktop organization software. Fences allows a user to automatically organize their Windows® desktop shortcuts and icons in shaded areas that can be hidden by double-clicking to reduce clutter. Fences 3 keeps all of the features of its predecessor, but adds support for modern, high DPI monitors, more translucency behind fences by blurring the wallpaper behind them, full Windows 10 compatibility, and more. Users will also be able to condense their Fences into a “title bar” instead of hiding the fence completely, allowing for better organization and easy to find files. “As we work on new iterations of our existing software, we keep the needs of our customers in mind, “ said Angela Marshall, COO and Vice President of Software at Stardock, and added: Fences 3 joins the lineup of desktop customization enhancements available through Stardock's comprehensive Object Desktop product, where consumers can gain access to the company's award-winning software like Start10, WindowBlinds, Multiplicity, and DeskScapes. Fences 3 adds support for high DPI monitors and Microsoft Windows 10. Fences 3 is available to download now for $9.99, or as an upgrade for those who own a previous version for just $4.99. Fences 3 is now available through Stardock here. For more information about Fences 3 and our other Windows customization software, please visit http://www.stardock.com/products or check out the gallery below for some screenshots. Disclaimer: Neowin's relationship to Stardock . 2016-05-18 18:02 Steven Parker

40 Siri could come to OS X 10.12 Fuji soon New evidence suggests Siri will indeed be coming to the next version of OS X. MacRumors spotted a screenshot of application dock in OS X 10.12 Fuji and interestingly there's a new icon that features the same colors Siri uses. What's more, MacRumor's source claims clicking on the new app causes a familiar waveform interface to appear and from there the virtual assistant will listen for commands. Image Credit: MacRumors Fuji will also supposedly offer hands-free access to Siri, though, it won't be turned on by default and instead users will have to dive in to their settings to activate the feature. As with using Siri on the iPhone we imagine the experience will be similar on Macs. On smartphones and iPads, Siri can already set reminders, send messages and complete web searches. Though with access to a fully featured file browser and desktop applications, Siri could have a much deeper level of integration on Macs. It's likely we will see the feature introduced at Apple's Worldwide Developer's Conference, which will take place on June 13-17. Stay tuned for our live coverage from the event later this summer. Article continues below 2016-05-18 17:00 Kevin Lee

41 Buy an Xbox One from Microsoft UK, and you'll get a battery hatch with your Gamertag on it Microsoft is hoping to sell a few more Xbox Ones in the UK by offering a customized freebie with new purchases of the console. As part of its #MyXboxController promotion, if you buy one of a select range of Xbox Ones , Microsoft will give you a free battery hatch with your Xbox Gamertag 'laser printed' on to it. The offer can also be combined with other deals available on the Xbox One in the UK. The white Special Edition Quantum Break Bundle, for example, is currently available with £20 off its usual £319.99 price, bringing it down to £299.99. You can also get a whopping £90 off the Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege Bundle, reducing its price to £279.99. The free customized battery hatch offer will remain available until June 16. However, it's worth noting that Microsoft's small print for the offer states that it is available only to the "first 400 customers" - so if you've got your heart set on a customized controller, don't wait too long to make that purchase. Source: Microsoft UK via @xboxuk 2016-05-18 16:58 Andy Weir

42 Lenovo reportedly rebranding Moto X to Moto Z with upcoming release Lenovo seems to be planning yet another change with respect to its Moto phone business, as a report has revealed that the company might introduce a new Moto Z series of flagship devices, replacing its current Moto X line. Earlier this year, Lenovo announced that it would be phasing out the Motorola name from its devices while retaining the Moto branded series of smartphones. The company launched three variants of the Moto G4 smartphone yesterday and is expected to announce its flagship smartphone series in June. According to Venture Beat's Evan Blass, this flagship series might be named Moto Z instead of the former Moto X series. The devices in the series are rumoured to retain their names with the "Play" being the lowest model, while the "Style" would be considered the lines flagship. Both devices are said to feature 5.5-inch display and would have other differentiating factors between them. The report does mention that there might be more devices on the way, as with last year's Moto X series, which featured the Moto X Pure and Turbo. Verizon would also see a variant, that will allegedly be tagged as "Droid Edition" Moto Z smartphones. We have already seen the upcoming flagship Moto smartphones in leaked images , but it will be interesting to know what sets them apart from the current crop of devices from competitors. Lenovo is expected to unveil the new range at an event on the 9th of June. Source: Venture Beat | Image via Venture Beat 2016-05-18 16:42 Shreyas Gandhe

43 Blackberry Hamburg Specs Revealed from GFXbench Benchmark Test The post on GFXBench has shed some light on the specs of the upcoming smartphone. Consequently, Blackberry Hamburg will be featuring a 5.2-inch display with 1080 x 1920 pixel resolution. The smartphone will sport a Snapdragon 615 chipset with octa-core 1.5GHz CPU, and the Adreno 405 GPU. It should also come with 3GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. Rear camera capacity is set to reach 12MP and it will have an 8MP selfie snapper in the front. It’s also set to come with 6.0.1 out of the box. One of the reasons why the Priv failed to impress was its price, which also prompted to company to focus its attention on smartphones that fall in the mid-range category. BlackBerry is also expected to launch a Rome model this year, but information on this one is quite scarce. We can expect the new BlackBerry Hamburg to hit the market this year, but until it does, new details on specs will surely emerge. The price for the new BlackBerry Hamburg model is expected to land between $300 and $400. 2016-05-18 16:41 Alexandra Vaidos

44 How to add Shutterstock photos to your Microsoft PowerPoint presentations Shutterstock is now making it easy to find and add quality photos to your Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, as it just launched a new add-in for the popular software that lets you explore and buy images from its vast collection. "We know our customers are frequently using images to enhance their PowerPoint presentations", says Microsoft corporate vice president of Developer Experiences Steven Guggenheimer. "With this Microsoft Office 365 PowerPoint add-in, Shutterstock is broadening our ability to enhance productivity through its collection of high-quality imagery to professional users". The add-in, called Shutterstock Images, lets you find pictures using keywords or by browsing categories. After you have found what you are looking for, you can download watermarked previews and see how the photos look when they are embedded in your presentation. Shutterstock says that there are three image sizes available from the add- in, which should fit just right "whether adding an image alongside bullet points, selecting a visual for a transition slide, or looking for images for large-scale displays or professional printing". If you like what you see you can go to the next step, which is buying the images. Shutterstock users can use an existing subscription, but if you are new to the service you will need to sign up. You can see the available plans here. In the add-in's listing, the company says that if you are among the first 25,000 users to install the Shutterstock Images add-in, which can be downloaded from the Office store you will get an image for free. It is worth mentioning that not every photo in Shutterstock's 84 million image collection costs money, as there are also some photos which are available for free though significantly fewer in numbers. To use the add-in you will need PowerPoint Online or PowerPoint 2013 Service Pack 1 or newer. To download it, hit the link in the paragraph above if you have not done so already. Shutterstock Images is available for free. We can attest to the quality of the images available through Shutterstock, as we use the service ourselves to find nice photos to add to our articles -- as you might have noticed by now. We highly recommend giving the add-in a try. 2016-05-18 16:38 By Mihăiță

45 UPDATE 1-Salesforce revenue beats on strong demand for cloud software (Adds details, shares) May 18 (Reuters) - Salesforce.com Inc reported better-than-expected quarterly revenue and raised its full-year forecast, driven by higher demand for its web-based sales and marketing software. Shares of the company, which is seen as a barometer for the cloud- computing sector, rose 5.9 percent in after-hours trading. Salesforce has been gaining market share from Oracle Corp and SAP in enterprise business applications as more companies choose cheaper and easier cloud-software services. Revenue from its sales cloud collection of software, which allows companies to track leads and forecast opportunities around sales, rose 14.9 percent to $724.6 million. The San Francisco-based company said its app cloud business, which allows third-party developers to create apps for its software platform, recorded a 45.5 percent jump in revenue growth. The company's net income rose to $38.8 million, or 6 cents per share, in the first quarter ended April 30 from $4.1 million, or 1 cent per share, a year earlier. Excluding special items, the company earned 24 cents per share. Revenue rose 26.8 percent to $1.92 billion. Analysts on average had expected a profit of 23 cents per share on revenue of $1.89 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. For the full year, Salesforce said it expects revenue of $8.16 billion-$8.20 billion and adjusted profit of $1.00-$1.02 per share. The company had previously forecast revenue of $8.08 billion-$8.12 billion and profit of 99 cents-$1.01 per share for the period. (Reporting by Kshitiz Goliya in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D'Silva) 2016-05-18 16:34 CNBC

46 Samsung Pay now supports membership and loyalty cards I love shopping in brick and mortar stores (except Walmart and Dollar General). No matter what I am buying -- shoes, clothes, food, technology -- I have a blast. My favorite aspect of shopping, however, is getting deals. Spending money is certainly not one of my favorite things, but if I get a discounted sale, it makes the experience much more satisfying. Unfortunately, many stores require membership and loyalty cards to get the lower prices. These pieces of plastic can accumulate quickly, becoming unwieldy in a wallet or purse. Digital payment solutions should alleviate this dilemma. Apple Pay recently introduced support for Kohls loyalty cards. Today, Samsung Pay is getting membership and loyalty card support too. "Users can upload and store merchant membership and loyalty cards in Samsung Pay -- including from their gym, drug store, grocery store or any of their favorite retailers. Samsung Pay’s new membership feature can also be used to store other cards such as insurance and personal identification cards for safe keeping. To use membership or loyalty cards, users simply launch the Samsung Pay app, select the appropriate card, hold their Samsung Galaxy smartphone screen up to the merchant’s scanner, and let the card’s barcode be scanned at the register", says Samsung. Nana Murugesan, VP of Strategy and Operations for Samsung Electronics America explains, "with this new feature, Samsung Pay is giving users quick access to their favorite membership and loyalty programs and making shopping even easier. Right now, shoppers have several things -- credit and debit cards, membership cards, coupons, gift cards -- they need to take out of their wallets and scan at the register. Samsung is simplifying the checkout experience by bringing those items to your phone, representing our next step toward a world without physical wallets". While this is definitely useful, it is a very low-tech solution. Basically, the Samsung Pay app is storing nothing more than images of the loyalty and membership cards so that the barcode can be displayed at the register. A user could do the same thing by taking pictures of the barcodes and storing them in a photo app -- Samsung's solution should be more elegant, however. SEE ALSO: Kohl’s combines charge card and Yes2You Rewards into a single Apple Pay experience Is it one less card to carry? Yes, but still an additional step in the checkout process. Hopefully the loyalty card can be integrated into the payment process itself in the future. This is how Apple Pay is handling things now -- one step. Will you use this feature on your compatible Samsung phone? Tell me in the comments. 2016-05-18 16:24 By Brian

47 47 Windows 95 running on an Xbox One is slightly mad, but strangely pleasing Windows 95 has been showing up in the strangest places recently. Just last month, a developer managed to get Microsoft's ancient desktop operating system running on an Apple Watch - and now, it's popped on Microsoft's latest games console too. YouTube user vcfan shared a video of Windows 95 running on his Xbox One, and thanks to Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform, it seems it wasn't too challenging to make it happen. vcfan ported DOSBox - an open source DOS emulator - to the Xbox as a UWP app. The Xbox One runs a version of Windows 10 , but while UWP apps will be generally available on the console from this summer , when the Anniversary Update rolls out, developers can already run these apps on the console, thanks to a new 'dev kit' that Microsoft launched a few weeks ago. The port isn't perfect - vcfan said that it's "slow for now because it's only using the cpu interpreter. The dynarec still needs work since it produces crashes on 64bit, but it flies with it. " Nonetheless, there's something oddly satisfying about seeing someone use an Xbox One to run DOS to fire up Windows 95 to run Duke Nukem 3D. You can see it for yourself in the video below: Source: YouTube via EuroGamer.net 2016-05-18 16:10 Andy Weir

48 The network is the application: Why APIs are agents of change Engineer, entrepreneur and inventor Bob Metcalfe once described how the value of a network grew as the number of Ethernet cards increased. The concept also works for applications. While the cost of a network grows linearly based on the number of connections, the network effect, hypothesised by Ethernet inventor Metcalfe, describes how its value is proportional to the square of the number of users. The network effect has now arrived in the application development space with the emergence of the application network, at least according to application programming interface (API) management specialist MuleSoft. At the company’s London Summit earlier in May 2016, Ross Mason, CEO at MuleSoft, warned delegates that their organisations need to get used to change. “The world is changing and getting good at adapting to change, and ingesting new tech, is essential,” he said. However, if change is the new normal, the way IT has evolved to support new technological breakthroughs in the areas of social, mobile, cloud and big data is too slow. Mason warned that all industry sectors face serious disruption. “You have to change quickly because you don’t know where the competition will be,” he said. And according to Mason, making IT more efficient is not necessarily the answer: “You can go 30% faster, but how do you drive a much faster clock speed in IT?” His answer is that CIOs needs to think differently and this is why IT should apply Metcalfe’s network effect to applications. “We almost always extend IT architectures too far. They break,” said Mason. 2016-05-18 16:00 Managing Editor

49 Cyber espionage campaign targets Ukraine separatists Researchers at security firm Eset have uncovered an ongoing surveillance operation against separatists in Eastern Ukraine using previously unknown malware. Detected as Win32/Prikormka , the malware has eluded the attention of antimalware researchers since at least 2008. It has been carrying out cyber- espionage activities primarily targeting anti-government separatists in the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics. The malware features a modular architecture, allowing attackers to expand its functionality and steal various types of sensitive information and files from the cyber-surveillance targets, the researchers said. Further technical details of the malware, as well as additional information on the ongoing cyberespionage operation, can be found in Eset’s comprehensive whitepaper . “Along with the armed conflict in the east of Ukraine, the country has been encountering numerous targeted cyberattacks, or so-called advanced persistent threats,” said Robert Lipovský, senior malware researcher at Eset. “For example, we discovered several campaigns using the now-infamous BlackEnergy malware family , one of which resulted in a massive power outage. But in the survellance operation, previously unknown malware is used,” he said. 2016-05-18 15:45 Security Editor

50 Nike and BMW pilot HP Inc's first 3D printer Nike, BMW, Autodesk, Johnson & Johnson and Siemens are among the early adopters of HP Inc’s first 3D printer. The company positions the €120,000 HP Jet Fusion 3D Printer for design, prototyping and manufacturing. HP Inc claims the printer is up to 10 times faster and is half the cost of current 3D print systems. By printing functional parts at the individual voxel (the 3D equivalent of a 2D pixel), HP offers customers an unprecedented ability to transform part properties and deliver mass customisation, the company said. Stephen Nigro, president of HP’s 3D printing business , said: “Our 3D printing platform is unique in its ability to address more than 340 million voxels per second, versus one point at a time, giving our prototyping and manufacturing partners radically faster build speeds, functional parts and breakthrough economics.” Nike said it has been using 3D printing for several years to create footwear. “We are excited to partner with HP to accelerate and scale our existing capabilities as we explore new ways to manufacture performance products to help athletes reach their full potential,” said Tom Clarke, president of innovation at Nike. BMW regards 3D printing as a step towards customisation and personalisation of its cars. Jens Ertel, head of BMW Group additive manufacturing centre, said: “We see major potential in our partnership with HP to investigate this new kind of 3D printing technology at an early stage. “As one of the first partners, we had the chance to see the constant evolution of the machines over time, from the first prototype approximately five years ago to the market ready product available now.” HP Inc said the printer could be used to print embedded intelligence, such as sensors for the internet of things (IoT) or embed invisible traces or codes, for increased security and traceability in supply chains. The company plans to use the printer to build parts for future models. In the future, up to 50% of the custom plastic parts for the HP Jet Fusion 3D printers are expected to be printed and produced with HP Multi Jet Fusion technology versus traditional manufacturing methods, said HP Inc. 2016-05-18 15:45 Managing Editor

51 Panasonic Eluga I2 Gets Updated with 2GB/3GB of RAM and VoLTE Support According to Techvorm , Panasonic released two new variants in the Eluga I2 series, one with 2GB and the other with 3GB of RAM, compared to the initial model which had just 1GB of RAM. The new Eluga I2 variants come with some upgrades in the camera department, the front camera was upgraded from 2MP in the original model to 5MP, with added Voice over LTE (VoLTE) support for Indian specific LTE brands. Rear camera capacity reaches 8MP with LED flash. Both variants have 16GB internal memory, compared to 8GB of the earlier model and the option to expand memory to 32GB using a microSD card. The new variants kept the screen size of the original model, 5 inches HD IPS display with wide viewing angles and daylight readability. They come with a 1GHz Quad Core processor powered by a 2000mAh battery. The smartphones support 4G VoLTE and have dual SIM 4G/3G/2G configuration. They also support other connectivity options like Wi-Fi, hotspot, Bluetooth and A-GPS. Eluga I2 smartphones run on 5.1 with Panasonic Fit Home UI. Eluga I2 is sized at 144.2x71.2x8.8mm and weighs just 135 grams. The premium smartphone in the Eluga series would be the Eluga Arc launched in April. This model comes with a more powerful processor and the latest version of Android OS. It also comes with a fingerprint sensor. The new Eluga I2 variants are available in three different colors, Metallic silver, Metallic gold or Metallic grey and the phones will support 21 languages. Prices in India reach $119 (€106) for the 2GB variant while the 3GB model has a higher price of $134 (€119). They also come with protective screen guard as a free accessory. 2016-05-18 15:40 Alexandra Vaidos

52 Nokia smartphones are making a comeback, this time running Android One of the oldest phone brands is making a comeback. Today, Nokia announces that we will see its name on new smartphones, feature phones and tablets again. And, this time round, the smartphones and tablets will be running Android, the most popular mobile operating system today, as opposed to Microsoft's Windows 10 Mobile or another niche OS. Nokia will not be the one actually producing these devices though, as the Finnish company has given a third-party the right to manufacture mobile handsets featuring its well-recognized name. HMD, a new Finnish company which Nokia says is "led by some of the world’s top mobile specialists", has received an "exclusive global license to create a full range of Nokia-branded smartphones, tablets, and feature phones for the next decade". Nokia notes that the license does not cover Japan. HMD, together with FIH Mobile, which is a Foxconn subsidiary, has also purchased Microsoft's entry-level feature phone assets, the software giant has announced. As part of the deal the two companies are also getting Microsoft Mobile Vietnam, the software giant's manufacturing plant in Hanoi. The facility has about 4,500 employees. Microsoft notes that it will "continue to develop Windows 10 Mobile and support Lumia phones such as the Lumia 650, Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL, and phones from OEM partners like Acer, Alcatel, HP, Trinity and VAIO". The way that the software giant puts it, it reads like it will not bring new Windows 10 Mobile smartphones to market. I have reached out to Microsoft for clarification. Nokia has not announced when exactly we can expect to see new Nokia- branded devices, only saying that "there is still much work for HMD to do" and that interested consumers will have to "wait a bit longer to see what the next wave of Nokia phones and tablets look like". Nokia suggests that their design will be similar to that of handsets it released in the past. Nokia has a pretty sweet deal going on. In return for receiving the global license, HMD will make royalty payments to Nokia. Nokia says that it will not make any investment in the newly-formed company, though it will make "cellular standard essential patent licenses" available to HMD to produce those devices. Phone manufacturing had proven to be very, very costly for Nokia in the past, even with the financial help that it had received from Microsoft. So the company is wise not to repeat its mistakes. How much we, as consumers, will gain from this deal is unclear though, as while Nokia was renowned for the quality of its phones HMD is an unknown entity at this point with unclear intentions. Consumers who had asked Nokia to make Android devices, while it was producing Windows Phones, are likely waiting for solid mid-range and high- end offerings, which are very expensive to make and require a great deal of attention to get right. Foxconn certainly has what it takes to deliver such handsets, from a hardware perspective, but we do not know if HMD has the know-how to make the right software for them. Fortunately, HMD seems to be in good, experienced hands. The company is led by Arto Nummela, the head of Microsoft's Mobile Devices business for Greater Asia, Middle East and Africa. He will make the switch to HMD CEO after the deal with Microsoft is complete. HMD president will be Microsoft Mobile senior vice president for Europe Sales and Marketing Florian Seiche. Photo credit: 360b / Shutterstock 2016-05-18 15:16 By Mihăiță

53 Five suppliers get 51% of all UK government IT spending, says PAC Just five IT suppliers receive 51% of all central government IT spending, despite Whitehall attempts to spend more money with smaller businesses, according to MPs. A report published by the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) says that, five years after the government set a target of putting 25% of all public purchasing through small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), it is still not clear that smaller suppliers can better compete with larger providers or whether they are actually getting any more government business than before. The MPs highlighted the success of the Government Digital Service (GDS) G-Cloud initiative, which has seen 51% of its £1bn spend go to SMEs since 2012 – but pointed out that this represents only 5% to 7% of all government IT contracts. A National Audit Office (NAO) report in March 2016 said that government claims of increased spend with SMEs may not be correct. The NAO said that, due to government changing the way it estimates SME spending four times over the last five years, there is no way of knowing if the figures are right. “We are not persuaded that initiatives to remove barriers to SMEs have resulted in substantially greater competition for government business, citing evidence of larger providers continuing to dominate,” said the PAC report. “Government has not yet identified areas of spending where SMEs could bring the most benefit and it remains too difficult for SMEs to know what bidding opportunities are available.” 2016-05-18 15:15 Editor In

54 Four-year-old LinkedIn IDs go up for sale online Cast your mind back to 2012 and the LinkedIn hack that had the grown up's social network scurrying to advise its users to change their passwords. It was thought at the time that the 6.5 million sets of credentials posted on a Russian password forum was the extent of the breach. However, four years on a hacker under the name of 'Peace' is offering for sale a database of millions more LinkedIn accounts. The data on offer includes the email addresses, plus hashed -- and in some cases already cracked -- passwords of 117 million users. Details of the sale, which is said to be advertised on at least two hacking sites, were first revealed by the Motherboard.com site. Aside from the immediate threat to user's details, this raises questions about why LinkedIn underestimated the size of the breach in the first place. If it suspected that a larger number of accounts had been compromised it really should have forced a reset of all passwords across the site back in 2012. "There needs to be a sense of heightened security every day when it comes to cyberattacks and thinking passwords could be stolen," John Peterson, vice president of enterprise products at cyber security company Comodo told BetaNews. "Consumers, small businesses and large enterprises all need to understand that criminals have established, working organizations with paid hackers, spammers and phishing experts who think of ways to steal and leverage passwords, bank records, social security numbers, company trade secrets and data, and credit card and financial data every minute of every day. Only with end to end security that takes into account issues like endpoint, breach detection and secure web gateways can companies of all sizes look to beat the cybercriminal at their own game". In the meantime if you're on LinkedIn and you didn't change your password after the 2012 breach you should almost certainly do so now. Two-factor authentication is now available on LinkedIn too so enabling that wouldn't do any harm either. Image Credit: Gil C / Shutterstock 2016-05-18 15:06 By Ian

55 Most organisations unprepared for cyber attacks, says report Nearly 80% of organisations remain unprepared and without a formal plan to respond to cyber security incidents , a report has revealed. There has been little improvement in preparedness in the past three years, according to the annual Global Threat Intelligence Report (GTIR) by NTT Com Security . Based on data from 24 security operations centres, seven R&D centres, 3.5 trillion logs and 6.2 billion attacks in 2015, the GTIR shows that on average, only 23% of organisations have the capability to respond effectively to critical security incidents. The lack of improvement was further underlined by the finding that nearly 21% of vulnerabilities detected in client networks were more than three years old, while more than 12% were over 5 years old, and over 5% were more than 10 years old. Results included vulnerabilities from as far back as 1999, making them over 16 years old. “Prevention and planning for cyber security incidents seems to be stagnating,” said Garry Sidaway, vice-president of strategy and alliances at NTT Com Security. “This is a real concern and could be due to a number of reasons, such as security fatigue caused by too many high-profile security breaches, information overload and conflicting advice in combination with the sheer pace of technology change, lack of investment and increased regulation. “Facing security challenges that didn’t exist last year, let alone a decade ago, and struggling with a shortfall in information security professionals, many organisations no longer have the necessary skills or resources to cope. Our mantra is prevention is better than cure and get the security basics right, including having a clear, well-communicated incident response plan.” 2016-05-18 15:00 Security Editor

56 Share Your Internet via Wi-Fi by Turning Your PC into a Hotspot After setup, Wi-Fi Hotspot gets automatically launched, creates an icon in the systray, shares the first network it identifies on your computer, and automatically assigns a name and password for others to detect and log on. It uses WPA2 security and immediately makes the WiFi connection active again after the PC is restored from hibernation. Whether you want to share your computer's wireless, Ethernet or 3G/4G USB modem connection with your friends, smartphone, tablet or notebook, you can easily configure these three Windows tool that use WPA2 security to create a virtual router: http://www.softpedia.com/blog/share-your-internet- via-wi-fi-by-turning-your-pc-into-a-hotspot-504215.shtml 2016-05-18 15:00 Elena Opris

57 Coolpad Releases Max and Max Lite with Dual Space Options The main innovation regarding the two smartphones is the inclusion of the Dual Space feature, which can only be found on these two phones. The feature enables users to efficiently separate their personal and professional life, without having to switch between two smartphones. It allows users to have two accounts on popular social media applications like WhatsApp, Facebook, Line or even BBM. Thus, contacts, photos, videos, applications are divided into two separate accounts on the phone. While the Dual Space feature is present on both smartphones, the Max differs from the Max Lite when it comes to specs. Coolpad Max comes with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 octa-core processor clocked at 1.5GHz. It has 4GB of RAM and advanced charging features that provide more than two hours of talk time with five minutes of charging. Coolpad Max has a 5.5-inch FHD display, with Edge Curved Glass 2.5D screen reinforced with Corning Gorilla Glass 4 to avoid scratches and fingerprint coating films. It comes in two color variants, Gold and Rose Gold. The manufacturer stated that the Coolpad Max’s surface is 97% pure metal and the phone weighs 170g. It’s 7.6mm thin and comes with a 13MP rear camera and 5MP in the front. It also has a fingerprint sensor that can also be used for App Shortcut, Quick Capture, One Key Dial and Switch Space. Coolpad Max Lite was also launched and it features the same screen display, but only 3GB of RAM. It incorporates the same Dual Space technology and fingerprint sensor. The Lite variant comes with a 1.4GHz 64bit Octa Core MSM8929 processor. 2016-05-18 14:45 Alexandra Vaidos

58 New BIOS Versions Available for Intel’s NUC Devices - Download Now Before moving any further, you should know that Intel has provided BIOS 0029 and 0036 for its NUC5i5MY and NUC5i3MY NUC systems, respectively, as well as version 0054 compatible with the NUC5PGYH, NUC5CPYH, and NUC5PPYH NUC Kits. In addition to that, the producer has also made available a 0044 BIOS update developed especially for its NUC6i5SYH, NUC6i3SYH, NUC6i5SYK, and NUC6i3SYK NUC kits. To continue with the changes, these files will add new NVRAM preserved variables, hide NFC setup item, remove the NFC connection from the GPIO options, and update Visual BIOS to 2.2.20 (from 2.2.17). Moreover, some of these devices will also receive changes and improvements for the Power Button menu and F4 Recovery. However, make sure to check the description page before downloading the BIOS for your specific NUC. When it comes to installation, make sure to carefully read all available update methods and choose the one that’s best for you. Bear in mind that failing to successfully flash the BIOS can lead to serious malfunctions. That said, download the appropriate package for your device by following one of the links below, apply it on your NUC, and constantly check our website to stay up to speed with the latest releases. 2016-05-18 14:37 Iulian Pascal

59 Past is a comprehensive data analysis tool Read its official description, and Past doesn’t sound like it has much general appeal. "Paleontological Statistics Software" covering "univariate and multivariate statistics, ecological analysis, time series and spatial analysis, morphometrics and stratigraphy". Really? Gulp. But even though it’s aimed squarely at data analysis experts, Past has some features which could be useful for just about anyone. Past is entirely free, no adware, no registration or other hassles, it doesn’t even need installing -- simply unzip and go. A simple spreadsheet interface provides an easy way to enter data. You can also copy information from the clipboard, or import a few file types (XLS, plain text, more). The Summary Statistics report gives some basic details that even the math- phobic might find handy: min, max, sum, mean, standard error, standard deviation and so on. The Plot menu provides access to a host of chart types, including XY, Histogram, Bar, Pie, Stacked, Percentiles, Bubble, 3D scatter, Matrix and Surface. These are all very straightforward to use. Select any data in your spreadsheet, choose the chart type and it’s immediately displayed. Most charts also have a good range of customization options, and they can be saved as JPG, GIF, PNG, even SVG for the best possible quality. You get a few accessible extras, including a feature (Windows only) which plots columns of latitude and longitude with the coordinates presented as points, filled polygons or multi-segment lines. And of course, if you’re a maths whiz and really need Past’s high-end stats tools, there’s a lot to explore. We don’t have the space to begin to cover them here, but as an example, even the Univariate menu crams in all these options: Summary, One- Sample tests, Two-Sample tests, F and t tests, Two-sample paired tests, ANOVA etc, One-way ANCOVA, Correlation, Intraclass correlation, Normality tests, Contingency table, Mantel-Cochran-Haenszel test, Risk/ odds, Single proportion test, Multiple proportion CIs, Survival analysis, Combine errors. Past is a freeware application for Windows 7 and later and OS X. 2016-05-18 14:34 By Mike

60 Uber's new Trip Tracker feature lets you follow family members' journeys in real-time Uber has announced a new safety feature that links to its recently implemented Family Profiles program. The Trip Tracker update will automatically let family members and other loved ones follow each others’ Uber trips in real-time. Family Profiles, which Uber announced in March, allows users to group up to 10 family members – or friends – onto one account so they can foot the bill for their rides. The new feature will provide details of each person’s trip to whoever is in charge of the Family Profile with a notification and the option to view a live map showing the vehicle’s route. The ability to share real-time maps of Uber journeys has been around for a while, thanks to the ‘Share my ETA’ feature , but this requires users to select which people they want to receive the information. Trip Tracker makes the whole process a lot simpler by automatically sending out a notification and tracking map to the person paying for the ride. The new feature is intended for situations such as when parents use Uber to send their child to school and want to monitor their progress, or making sure an elderly relative gets home okay. Following an initial launch in a handful of markets, including Atlanta, Dallas, and Phoenix, Family Profiles are now available in every market where Uber operates. According to TechCrunch , they are used most frequently in the US, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, and Columbia. The feature is popular in Latin America, where most households only have one credit card, and the city of Los Angeles has the Family Profile with the most people on it. 2016-05-18 14:30 Rob Thubron

61 Google Sheets, Slides APIs Revamped To Improve Workflow Google may struggle with social networking , but it does better with machine networking, in the form of APIs. APIs, or application programming interfaces, allow programs to talk to one another. In an era when nearly everything is potentially programmable, APIs have become more important than ever, particularly to businesses that need to connect a diverse portfolio of services. Google Apps has had APIs for years, but much of the recent attention lavished on the suite has occurred at a business level. Google has shown more interest in increasing its enterprise credibility than its technical capability. But after strengthening its Google Apps for Work partner program and bringing Diane Greene on board to run the company's enterprise business, Google wants to make the technical foundation of its cloud productivity suite more useful to enterprise partners. "There have been APIs for Docs to give you programmatic access since 2006, but we really weren't focused on building an enterprise-grade ecosystem," said Ritcha Ranjan, group product manager for in an interview last week. "And we really weren't focused on getting leading partners in the enterprise space to help us with this. " Last year, Google introduced the Classroom API to help developers integrate education apps with , a tool to make Google Apps for Education more useful to teachers. This year, as Google plans to announce at Google I/O 2016, the company is updating Sheets and Slides, to help developers make data in Google Apps for Work more readily accessible to third-party apps. Ranjan said after talking with partners and looking at how people use Google Apps, Google realized there was an opportunity to improve workflows that exist between Google Apps and other applications. Often these workflows involve copying and pasting data between apps. "What we want to do is take what takes minutes in a workflow today and simplify that down into a couple of clicks," said Ranjan. At Google I/O on Wednesday, Ranjan said, Google plans to announce enhancements to the APIs for Sheets and Slides that allow the products to communicate more easily with third-party services. The new Sheets API makes almost all the features in Sheets programmatically accessible. With the API, developers will be able to write code to replace copy-and-paste data transport from Google Apps to a CRM or ERP app. "Salesforce is using our API to do real-time updates," said Ranjan. "The thing we think is a real differentiator here is that the data, when updated in Google Sheets, will be automatically pushed back in real-time to Salesforce. " Other companies working to integrate the Sheets API include Anaplan, Asana, Sage, and SAP. Similarly, the new Slides API will allow developers to alter Slides programmatically, enabling one-button updates to data and charts in Slides. Developers can sign up for early access, with general availability planned in a few months. [Read ' Q&A Feature Targets PowerPoint Fatigue .] Google says Conga, ProsperWorks, SalesforceIQ, and Trello are among the companies working to integrate the Slides API into their products. On a related note, Google intends to allow live data from Sheets to be embedded in Docs or Slides files. Using this capability, associated documents in other applications can be updated to match the data in Sheets with a single click. Also, the Classroom API is getting new endpoints so that developers can integrate assignments, grades, and workflow into their apps. With the ability to sync Classroom grades to reporting systems, teachers should no longer need to transfer grades manually. Jonathan Rochelle, director of product for Google Apps for Education, said that the next journey for Google Apps is machine intelligence, pointing to the Explore feature in Sheets as an example of the kinds of innovations to expect. That means adding to your team, he said, "not just people but the machine. Not just relying on it to do mundane task replacement, but to be smart and add intelligence to the process. " 2016-05-18 14:06 Thomas Claburn

62 TIBCO accelerates innovation across the core and edge of digital business TIBCO Software Inc. , a global leader in integration and analytics, today announced Project Flogo, an ultra- lightweight integration software solution, and TIBCO Graph Database, a translytical database for big data. Combined, these technologies increase interconnectivity, augment the intelligence of the Internet of Things (IoT), and expand the edge of Digital Business for organizations. Project Flogo introduces open source licensing to enable developers in building the broadest open IoT community. Project Flogo functions as one the first design bots for IoT edge application development, with a tile-based, zero-code environment for building and deploying integration and data processing directly onto connected devices. Its design bot and Web-based UI bring the best of TIBCO’s design environments to the IoT, with prepackaged building blocks for building applications, integration, data processing, and microservices, as well as error handling, including the first- ever auto-stepback debugger. Project Flogo brings this power to many of the smallest connected devices, with an average installed footprint that is up to 20 times lighter than Node.js and 50 times lighter than Java. TIBCO is releasing Project Flogo with permissive open-source licensing to help build a broad, open IoT development community and accelerate the evolution of the Internet of Things and Digital Business. TIBCO Graph Database is a translytical database that transforms a complex web of dynamic data into meaningful, comprehensible, and traversable relationships to help deliver real-time insight and action. It stores all data as intelligent schema that makes it easy to discover and model any relationships as graphs with nodes and edges. TIBCO Graph Database delivers linear performance at scale, with join-free queries that traverse complex relationships as datasets grow. TIBCO Graph Database will empower companies to build and maximize their return on relationships in real time to improve business outcomes. TIBCO Graph Database – Community Edition is available in Beta now in the TIBCO Community. You can also find the open source client API available on GitHub here. “We strongly believe that as industries continue to push the edge of digitalization, technologies like Project Flogo will allow us to connect more intelligently to smart devices. Also, as the number of smart things continues to proliferate in our hyper-connected world, our ability to store and understand complex relationships must grow as well. TIBCO Graph Database allow us to store these complex relationships in the cloud as well as analyze the relationships in real time for faster insights,” said Matt Quinn, executive vice president, products & technology, and chief technology officer, TIBCO. “Project Flogo and TIBCO Graph Database demonstrate TIBCO’s commitment to innovation in key areas relevant to our customers as they aim for their Digital Destinations.” Don’t miss out on the Digital Business transformation conversation. View the live stream of the keynote sessions on Follow @TIBCO on Twitter, and on our Facebook and LinkedIn pages to hear the latest from TIBCO leadership and subject-matter experts at the conference how the digital revolution continues to rapidly change the face of business. 2016-05-18 13:30 SD Times

63 Will the Pilot earpiece be the real-life universal translator we've always wanted? The universal translator has long been a piece of technology present in sci-fi shows, the most memorable one being Star Trek. Now, thanks to New York-based startup Waverly Labs , a real-life version is making its way onto crowdfunding site Indiegogo next week. Dubbed the Pilot, the earpieces provide an almost real-time translation of one language into another. Working in conjunction with the smartphone app, each person wears a device that outputs the translated speech directly into the ear. The Pilot picks up a user’s voice with the built-in microphone and sends it, via Bluetooth, back to the app where it is translated into a selected language. The audio is then sent to a second person’s earpiece, enabling a full, albeit slightly stilted, conversation to take place. Upon launch, the Pilot will be able to translate English into French, Spanish, and Italian, and vice versa, with more languages becoming available at a later date - though anyone who doesn’t pre-order will have to pay extra for them. Other technical details about the Pilot are a little sparse right now, but more may be revealed when its crowdfunding campaign kicks off on May 25. Fans of the excellent The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy may find the Pilot brings to mind the Babel Fish featured in the novels – an animal placed in the ear that feeds on the brainwaves of those around it and excretes a telepathic translation of alien languages into the brain of the wearer. While the demo video does look impressive, we’re still not at the stage where languages can be translated in total real-time. With the Pilot, there is a small delay between the moment something is spoken and when the translated version arrives in a person’s ear. Comparisons with translation services such as and Skype Translator are inevitable, but the privacy, easy of use, and accuracy offered by the earpieces could make the Pilot stand out next to its rivals. The Pilot will be available for $129 as an early bird special; the final retail price is expected to be $249 - $299. It includes two Pilot devices, one for each person in a conversation, but speaking directly into the phone app will also send translated speech to an earpiece. Waverly Labs’ product may not be cheap, but here’s hoping it turns out to be worth the price and is the saviour of monoglots traveling abroad. Check out the video below to see the Pilot in action. 2016-05-18 13:15 Rob Thubron

64 Save $1430 off this Ethical Hacker Professional Certification Package Today's highlighted deal comes from our ELearning section of Neowin Deals, where you can save over $1400 on this Ethical Hacker Professional Certification Package. Leap towards a career in ethical hacking with 60+ hours of prep toward CISM, CISA, and more certification exams. There is a huge demand for ethical hackers, tech professionals specially hired to hack a company or organization's network in order to expose security flaws. This course will give you the material and training you need to pass any of five professional hacker certifications. Certifications as a Certified Ethical Hacker, Computer Hacking Forensics Investigator, Certified Information Security Manager, Certified Information Systems Auditor, or Certified Information Systems Security Professional will look great on a resume and may even help you score a high-paying IT job. This Ethical Hacker Professional Certification Package normally represents an overall retail value of $1499, but you can get it for just $69.00 for a limited time. In addition, if you refer this deal via social media (below the 'Add to cart' button) which results in a purchase, you'll get $10 credit added to your Neowin Deals store account. Get this deal or learn more about it | View more offers ELearning Note: Exams are not included in this course. That's OK. If this offer doesn't interest you, why not check out our giveaways on the Neowin Deals web site? There's also a bunch of freebies you can grab here , as well as other great tech-related deals. You could also try your luck on The $1000 iTunes Gift Card Giveaway , all you have to do is sign up here to enter for this giveaway! How can I disable these posts? Click here . Disclosure : This is a StackCommerce deal or giveaway in partnership with Neowin; an account at StackCommerce is required to participate in any deals or giveaways. For a full description of StackCommerce's privacy guidelines, go here. 2016-05-18 13:10 News Staff

65 Sapphire 16: SAP’s McDermott stresses customer empathy as Microsoft pact declared SAP CEO Bill McDermott has said the company will put more emphasis on “empathy” for customers, during his opening keynote at the supplier’s 18 th Sapphire 2016 customer conference in Orlando. “We’re on fire for customers,” he said, although he conceded the company was “perhaps too fast out of the gates with S/4 Hana” – the supplier’s full enterprise resource planning (ERP) on its Hana in-memory database, released in 2015. In the first part of his talk, McDermott abandoned the traditional keynote format in favour of a more collegial panel, including executives from SAP business units Ariba, SuccessFactors and Concur. SAP Ariba president Alexander Atzberger, SAP SuccessFactors president Mike Ettling, and SAP Concur president Elena Donio joined SAP’s president of customer experience and commerce (CEC), Carsten Thoma, and chief business officer, Quentin Clark, to talk about innovation. McDermott was then joined on the stage by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, to announce joint plans to deliver support for the Hana database platform deployed on Microsoft Azure . The suppliers promised to simplify work through new integrations between Microsoft Office 365 and cloud services from SAP, and provide enhanced management and security for custom SAP Fiori applications. “We’ve always had a platform, ecosystem identity,” said Nadella. “Partnerships are absolutely necessary now, more than ever, and we and SAP have an existential need to bring our best together.” He added that the “unintended consequence” of all user organisations becoming, as he said, independent software suppliers – producing digital technology as well as buying it from IT companies – was an increase in the overall cyber security threat. That requires a more dynamic way of providing security, one that is machine learned, he said. “At Microsoft, we are focused on empowering organisations to build systems of intelligence that advance their digital transformations,” said Nadella. “Together with SAP, we are bringing new levels of integrations between our products that provide businesses with enhanced collaboration tools, new insights from data and a cloud to grow and seize new opportunities ahead.” 2016-05-18 13:00 Business Applications

66 Interest in converged platforms grows in Southeast Asia In an age of quick business cycles, where flexibility and agility can provide a competitive edge, businesses in Southeast Asia are turning to converged or hyper-converged infrastructures. According to the IDC Asia-Pacific C-Suite Barometer 2015 study, converged infrastructure is one of the top three emerging technologies being explored by respondents in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in 2015-2016. Globally, the hyper-converged integrated systems (HCIS) market is on the rise, and expected to grow from $371.5m in 2014 to nearly $5bn by 2019, according to Gartner . But currently, hyper-converged infrastructure adoption is still in its infancy, especially in Southeast Asia. “Within the Asean countries, there is still a need to understand hyper- convergence,” said PK Lim, Asean managing director at storage supplier Nutanix . “[But] we see a growing level of adoption among customers in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand as they look for ways to simplify IT and reduce costs.” The idea of a converged infrastructure centres on a hardware-based approach to virtualisation. This means the compute, networking and storage components are all hardware-based and are building blocks in a single chassis. This decoupling of the storage, computing and network software from the underlying infrastructure has resulted in a new set of software- defined infrastructure that runs on industry-standard x86 components. In contrast to converged platforms that combine components from multiple suppliers, the newer hyper-converged platforms use a software-defined infrastructure on top of physical components. It is typically an all-in-one appliance with all the compute, networking and software from a single supplier. “If required, the technologies in a converged infrastructure can be separated and used independently. The technologies in a hyper-converged infrastructure, however, are so integrated that they cannot be broken down into separate components,” said Lim. The demand for these infrastructures is driven by a move from IT infrastructures that are traditionally siloed, to virtualised environments that support cloud computing “Technology plays a crucial role in enabling the success of the business,” said Cynthia Ho, senior market analyst for enterprise servers at IDC Asia- Pacific . “When business cycles are rapidly shrinking, enterprises do not have the luxury of spending four to six weeks patching together disparate compute, storage and network building blocks, testing and fine-tuning them before the bare metal is up and running. This is where converged solutions come in, with the benefits of agility, simplicity and scalability.” Today, the hottest segment in converged infrastructures is undoubtedly the hyper-converged appliance, said Matt Oostveen, CTO for Asia-Pacific and Japan at EMC Converged Platforms . “In Asia, the excitement is greater than elsewhere as hyper-converged infrastructure had previously been out of reach for many organisations.” 2016-05-18 13:00 www.computerweekly

67 TIBCO announces key analytics advances in 2016 TIBCO Software Inc. , a global leader in integration and analytics, today announced a host of pivotal developments in its analytics offerings, including new data wrangling features in TIBCO Spotfire , new code-free Operational Intelligence dashboards in TIBCO LiveView Web , a new user-inspired developer community and component exchange, and a new Accelerator package for Apache Spark and the IoT. These advances, along with improved embedded business intelligence (BI) support in TIBCO Jaspersoft and a host of industry awards, signify both TIBCO’s unstoppable analytics momentum and its commitment to helping businesses successfully navigate their transformation into digital enterprises. TIBCO’s focus is on leveraging analytics for augmented intelligence—the ability to amplify human skill and experience to discover new insights, then productively share those insights across the enterprise in the shortest amount of time possible. “Some in the industry would lead you to believe that computers are going to replace people. We think that’s dead wrong,” said Mark Palmer, SVP and general manager of analytics engineering, TIBCO. “Computers should serve to augment human experience and intellect. At TIBCO, we focus our industry-leading visual, advanced, embedded and, streaming analytics solutions on delivering a pragmatic approach to cognitive computing, which we achieve by combining enhanced intelligence features with algorithmic automation capabilities. This combination encapsulates the essence of our Fast Data analytics platform—it balances human insight with intelligent technologies for superior productivity and a competitive advantage in end users’ respective markets.” TIBCO’s four major analytics developments this year are: TIBCO Spotfire has integrated new self-service data preparation, management, and utilization functionality to further extend the platform’s dynamic analytics capabilities. It provides a code-free interface for business analysts, data scientists, data stewards, and analytics leaders in IT to access, manipulate, improve, and catalog different data sources in an agile and trusted way. Unlike other analytics platforms, the inline datawrangling functionality in Spotfire is built-in, so it requires no third-party coordination for data preparation. The Spotfire 2016 platform is DevOps and cloud-ready, with re-configured routing and administrative functions and a re-architected HTML5-based client to scale on all devices, anywhere, including the new Spotfire client for iOS and new advanced geo-analytics applications. TIBCO’s open source, BSD-licensed Accelerator package cuts development time for deploying analytics-based solutions with Apache Spark from months to days. The Accelerator for Spark includes five subsystems: Connector, a set of over 30 open source adapters for edge connection to IoT and enterprise data; Digester, a stream data preparation layer; Finder, predictive model discovery template based on Spotfire software; Automator, a streaming analytics-based automation engine for Apache SparkML and H2O; and Tracker, to monitor predictive models and automatically invoke model retraining. The Accelerator for Spark is immediately available for all TIBCO customers. The free package can be found in the TIBCO Community. To access all previously released Accelerators please visit the TIBCO Component Exchange section of the TIBCO Community. TIBCO LiveView Web 1.1 is a code-free HTML5 operational-intelligence dashboard development platform for use with the TIBCO Live Datamart , which includes connectivity to TIBCO’s complete Fast Data catalog. The Live Datamart platform’s innovative Continuous Query Processor allows applications to query streaming data into the future. TIBCO LiveView Web 1.1, which provides a drag-and-drop interface, enables the creation of live visual dashboards for operational users, and includes integrated access to TIBCO StreamBase streaming analytics, TIBCO BusinessEvents, and a wide array of both TIBCO and third-party applications and systems. Live Datamart users using LiveView Desktop or LiveView Web can access operational intelligence from any browser. Additionally, enterprises may extend or customize their users’ experience by adding plug-ins to LiveView Web, or building their custom interfaces using Java,. NET or JavaScript. To better support customer needs, TIBCO launched a new developer community space for sharing end-user-driven technical expertise, insights, and Wiki articles. The new TIBCO Component Exchange and Marketplace Network also features a free for components and products that are based on TIBCO products, and a new product-management tool for more transparent product input and customer-generated roadmap insight. Many of TIBCO’s recent industry honors have come in the form of awards based on direct feedback from the analytics user community, substantiating TIBCO’s unique value to end users. “With the tremendous depth and breadth of our 2016 releases, TIBCO Analytics is unique in that it is essentially a ‘one-stop integrated shop’ analytics platform. Unlike other offerings, Spotfire features are baked-in, with APIs for partners and customers to continually expand the platform— and the momentum has taken hold. Our patent-pending Spotfire Augmented Intelligence Engine, for example, evolved from our recommendations engine,” Palmer said. “We are pleased to acknowledge our extended user community for their role in our success, and will continue to deliver on our promise of helping customers achieve their digital transformation goals with comprehensive and cutting-edge solutions.” To learn more about TIBCO’s analytics offerings, visit www.tibco.com/products/ analytics . For additional information about TIBCO, please visit www.tibco.com . TIBCO is showcasing how organizations can get to Destination: Digital at TIBCO NOW at the MGM Grand Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, May 16- 19. Don’t miss out on the digital business transformation conversation. View the live stream of the keynote session on May 18 at 8:30am PT here. Follow @TIBCO on Twitter, and on our Facebook and LinkedIn pages to hear the latest from TIBCO leadership and subject-matter experts at the conference how the digital revolution continues to rapidly change the face of business. 2016-05-18 12:58 SD Times

68 68 HP unveils the Elitebook 1030, boasts a whopping 13-hour battery life After launching the Elitebook Folio 1020 last year and the 1040 in 2014 , HP has now launched its latest business laptop, the Elitebook 1030. It offers users an elegant design, with the company stating that it fit a 13.3-inch screen into a 12.2-inch metallic chassis which almost makes it a bezel-less display. But perhaps the most interesting thing about the machine is that it can apparently run for 13 hours without needing to be charged. The HP Elitebook 1030 offers a 13.3-inch screen, which can be Full HD (1920*1080) or QHD+ (3200*1800), depending on the configuration. The latter also sports a touchscreen display. The machine weighs in at 2.55 pounds (~1.16 kg) and is 15.7 mm thick. It also includes SSD storage options of up to 512 GB and 16 GB of RAM. However, it is noteworthy that none of the configurations of this device offers Core i3, i5, or i7 processors, with HP instead opting for the sixth generation Core M processors, allowing a fanless design. Both the long battery life as well as the thin bezel remind us of the XPS 13 , so it will be interesting to see how the performance of the Core M compares to Dell's ofering. The machine also contains two USB 3.0 ports, an HDMI port and even a USB Type-C connection. Furthermore, it also includes a back-lit and spill- resistant "Premium keyboard", along with high end audio features, which also consists of HP's own noise reduction software. The company is touting security features including a fingerprint reader and an embedded TPM 2.0 chip . The HP Elitebook 1030 starts at $1,249, targeting high end businesses. While the pricing and configuration models for the device have not been released as of yet, interested business personnel can head over to HP's website for more details. Source and images: HP via ZDNet 2016-05-18 12:54 Usama Jawad

69 69 Scratch Blocks, Univa announces Navops Command, and Mozilla request to intervene denied— news digest: May 18, 2016 Young learners can now design and program creative interfaces with a new generation of graphical programming blocks, named Scratch Blocks. Google announced a collaboration with the MIT Media Lab’s Scratch Team, and released today an open-source developer preview of Scratch Blocks, which builds on the company’s Blockly technology. Scratch Blocks focuses on creating new software toolkits that enable developers to create high-quality experiences for kids, according to a Google developer blog post. The developer preview that was released today includes the Scratch Blocks horizontal grammar, an icon-based grammar that’s optimized for small screens. Google wrote that it has plans to support the vertical, text-based grammar that is familiar to users of Scratch. The open-source native Android version of Blockly is available today, and plans for the future include open-sourcing an iOS version later this year. Univa announces Navops Command Univa has announced Navops Command, which implements workload placement and advanced policy management so enterprises can take advantage of containers on any distribution. Navops can run on any Kubernetes distribution, so customers can work with different vendors like CoreOS’ Tectonic, Navops Launch or Red Hat’s OpenShift, according to the company. Some capabilities of Navops include advanced scheduling algorithms; sophisticated policies for managing SLAs; automating prioritization when resources aren’t available; and manage cluster resources efficiently. Mozilla request to intervene in porn case denied Mozilla had requested that the U. S. government disclose a vulnerability relating to its Tor Browser in an investigation of a child pornography website, and according to a report from Reuters yesterday, a federal judge has rejected its bid to intervene in the case. U. S. District Judge Robert Bryan in Tacoma, Wash., was the one to reject Mozilla’s request to intervene in the case. Mozilla wanted him to force the government to disclose to the company the vulnerability before revealing it to Jay Michaud, the school administrator charged in the investigation. According to Reuters, “Mozilla said it asked if the FBI submitted the browser flaw through an interagency vulnerability review process used to determine if vulnerabilities should be disclosed to affected companies or should be used secretly, but received no answer.” Reason is building systems rapidly Reason, an interface for rapidly building safe and fast systems, is Facebook’s new way of contributing its work back to the mobile and Web community. Reason works with OCaml, a highly expressive dialect of the ML language. It features type inference and static type checking, and it provides a new syntax and tool chain for editing, building and sharing code. According to the project’s website , “Reason currently integrates well into existing tool chains such as ocamlbuild, but Reason also provides a specification called Reason Project which specifies a workflow for how packages should connect together, and how they can be developed/built locally inside of directory-based sandboxes.” Reason is still being developed, and in the future it will include sandboxes for locally developing large projects, and everything will be installable with a single command. Improvements to syntax and iterating based on feedback will be included as well. Apple patent shows an all-screen phone There’s been talk about Apple getting rid of its home button, and in a patent that was published yesterday, it seems it might be willing to leave the bezel in the past. The concept from the patent is called “Man-machine interface for controlling access to electronic devices.” From the patent : “This invention relates generally to the field of electronic device user interfaces and authorization techniques, and more specifically to the field of fingerprint imaging sensors and touch screen display apparatuses.” The three technologies that can work with the fingerprint sensors is called an ultrasound imaging, which means it would require a fingerprint reader embedded in a display. The other three common types of fingerprint capture technologies include optical and capacitive. The patent says that the interface device includes a controller unit that is coupled to the display apparatus, the finger touch sensor region, and at least one electronic device. “The controller unit is capable of controlling data flow between the display apparatus, the finger touch sensor region and the electronic device, and for calculating finger touch locations based on a fingerprint image generated by the transparent finger touch sensor region,” the patent said. One report said that the sneak peek of the iPhone 7 won’t appear until late next year, but the biggest feature might just be the lack of the home button. 2016-05-18 12:51 Madison Moore

70 Fitbit acquires wearable payments technology Fitbit said Wednesday that it has purchased a wearable payments platform from financial technology company Coin. The wearable fitness tracking company said in its statement that while Coin's platform won't be integrated into its products this year, the deal will help Fitbit more quickly develop the near-field communication abilities of its future products. "We are focused on making wearable devices that motivate people to reach their health and fitness goals, and that also make their lives easier with the smart features they need most," James Park, CEO and co-founder of Fitbit, said in a statement. The deal includes "key personnel and intellectual property specific to Coin's wearable payment platform," according to Coin's statement . Fitbit also said that the acquisition does not include Coin's smart payment products like Coin 2.0, which allowed users to store multiple cards on one device. While the product has sold out, Coin said it will continue to function for its lifetime, approximately the two-year lifespan of the built-in battery. The company said that it has no plans to produce new units, but has "sufficient inventory to honor warranty claims. " The financial technology company also said on Wednesday that it is retiring Coin Rewards and the Coin Developer Program. 2016-05-18 12:05 Christine Wang

71 Foreign hackers could be spying on presidential campaigns: US intelligence The United States sees evidence that hackers, possibly working for foreign governments, are snooping on the presidential candidates, the nation's intelligence chief said Wednesday. Government officials are working with the campaigns to tighten security as the race for the White House intensifies. The activity follows a pattern set in the last two presidential elections. Hacking was rampant in 2008, according to U. S. intelligence officials, and both President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were targets of Chinese cyber attacks four years later. Despite that history, cyber experts say neither Donald Trump 's nor Hillary Clinton 's campaign networks are secure enough to eliminate the risk. "We've already had some indications" of hacking, James Clapper, director of national intelligence, said Wednesday at a cybersecurity event at the Bipartisan Policy Center in Washington. He said the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security were helping educate the campaigns. Of the attacks, Clapper predicted, "we'll probably have more. " The revelation comes after a Clapper's office released a document earlier this month saying foreign intelligence services tracked the 2008 presidential election cycle "like no other. " The document was part of a slide show used to warn incoming Obama administration officials that their new jobs could make them prey for foreign spies. Eight years ago, foreign intelligence services "met with campaign contacts and staff, used human source networks for policy insights, exploited technology to get otherwise sensitive data, engaged in perception management to influence policy," the document said. "This exceeded traditional lobbying and public diplomacy. " Jonathan Lampe with InfoSec Institute , a private information security company in Chicago, said security hasn't improved significantly since then. In October, he evaluated the security of sixteen candidates' websites and wrote a pair of 20-page reports. Using the reconnaissance skills of a casual hacker, Lampe pulled full lists of site user names and technologies used on most sites. In some cases, he discovered which directories were accessible from the Internet and which weren't. He learned what software products Hillary Clinton campaign's used from a job posting soliciting a computer-wise staffer. "Everybody was sitting with their pants down and by the time we looked at the sites in March, everybody had made fixes," Lampe said. But countries are probably still snooping, he said: "The sites were open enough back in October that anyone who grabbed the information then and wanted to use it, could still use it now. " Some threats are publicly known. Several weeks ago, the international group of activists and hackers known as Anonymous declared cyberwar on Donald Trump , urging supporters to take down his website and expose private information. A masked figure appeared on YouTube, saying, "Dear Donald Trump, we have been watching you for a long time and what we see is deeply disturbing. " The New York billionaire probably has the largest "attack surface" of all of the candidates, said John Dickson, a partner in the Denim Group, a San Antonio developer of secure software. "If it's the Bernie Sanders campaign, it's probably one website. If it's Donald Trump, it's his entire empire. " Dickson and other experts said they weren't privy to any incidents of foreign hacking of the campaigns. But as the political conventions and general election near, they worry about a well-timed, sophisticated attack by a nation state that could help a candidate. "Think of the Chinese. Think of the Iranians. They have the intelligence capabilities, obviously, and maybe even the desire to disrupt elections," Dickson said, adding that foreign efforts at least to learn more about the candidates must be taken for granted. "You would hope that the CIA is doing the same thing in following foreign elections," he said. Indeed, the U. S. spies on both allies and adversaries for policy, political and commerce information. The Clinton and Trump campaigns didn't respond immediately to questions about cybersecurity. Dickson said the campaigns focused more on computer security because of the investigation into Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, and a computer breach of voter data at the Democratic National Committee. Last year, Clinton's campaign accused rival Bernie Sanders of stealing information about potential voters from the committee's extensive voter trove. Sanders apologized for his campaign improperly gaining access to Clinton campaign data and fired a data director. V. Newton Miller, chief executive officer of the Milwaukee-based PKWARE, which provides encryption software and advises federal agencies on data security, said foreign spying on campaign sites was inevitable. "These campaigns are not working on encrypted platforms," he said. "It's a matter of when and how serious of an impact it is going to have on this election. " Foreign hackers are more interested in sensitive, revealing campaign emails and reports, especially with the unprecedented mudslinging of this campaign, rather than acts of cyber vandalism, Miller and other experts said. "If they shut down a candidate's website, I mean OK. So what? It impacts fundraising for 24 to 48 hours," Miller said. "It's the sensitive information that's the driver on this one. " A website for Romney's presidential campaign was shut down for a few hours by hackers in 2012, costing the campaign scores of potential donations. In the 2008 race, Obama and Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain, were targeted. One letter obtained by hackers showed McCain expressing his support for Taiwan. The hackers were believed to be backed by China's government, and a Chinese diplomat called the campaign to complain about the letter -- before it was even sent. Meanwhile, an Obama campaign staffer clicked on a corrupted attachment that allowed a virus to enter the system. Clinton and Trump both have taken jabs at China on the campaign trail and might seem ripe for similar attacks. Trump wants to punish Beijing for hacking and unfair trade practices. Clinton accused China of "trying to hack into everything that doesn't move in America" and stealing huge amounts of government information. 2016-05-18 11:46 CNBC

72 72 Following the success of Doom, it looks as if id Software's next project will be a Quake reboot Before it was released, there were several worrying signs - poor multiplayer beta reactions, no early review copies - that suggested the new Doom title may be disappointing. Thankfully, the game has beet met with an overwhelmingly positive response from both fans and critics alike. Now, it looks as if developer id Software will be bringing back another one of its classic first-person shooters from days gone by: Quake. The news comes after ZeniMax Media, the parent company of Doom publisher Bethesda and id Software, posted several job listings on its official website for positions at the developer’s Dallas and Frankfurt studios, most of which specifically mention Quake. Several of the vacancies, including those for lead gameplay programmer, art supervisor, senior physics programmer, and senior lighting artist, are seeking candidates who can “work as part of a development team on legendary id game properties like Doom and Quake.” After being released way back in 1996, the original game and its four sequels went on to sell over 4 million copies worldwide. While many say Doom is still the most influential first-person shooter of all time, plenty will argue that Quake should hold that honor. With the rebooted Wolfenstein games and now Doom proving so popular, it wouldn’t at all be a surprise to see a Quake game reimagined on today’s hardware. It’s been nine years since the last entry in the franchise – Enemy Terrority: Quake Wars – so we’re definitely due a return to the series. But whether id Software can get Trent Reznor back to compose the music remains to be seen. 2016-05-18 11:30 Rob Thubron

73 167 million LinkedIn accounts for sale on dark market, linked to 2012 breach A collection of 167 million LinkedIn accounts is up for sale on a dark market website. The asking price? A mere five Bitcoins, or roughly $2,200. The data dump was recently posted on TheRealDeal and reportedly contains user IDs, e-mail addresses and SHA1 password hashes for 167,370,940 users. Renowned security researcher Troy Hunt, who manages a site that lets people know if their data has been stolen, told Computerworld he has seen a subset of the data and verified that it’s legitimate. While 167 million is a number that’s certainly enough to make LinkedIn’s day pretty crummy, it doesn’t represent the site’s entire database. On its website, LinkedIn says it has more than 433 million registered users. LinkedIn was the victim of a security breach in 2012 in which 6.5 million accounts were stolen and posted online. Administrators from data leak indexing website LeakedSource , who also claims to have a copy of the fresh data set, believe the accounts in question originate from the 2012 breach. Of the 167 million accounts currently up for sale, LeakedSource says only 117 million have passwords attached to them which suggests the remaining users may have registered for LinkedIn through Facebook or some other outside service. If this data is indeed four years old, the 2012 breach was far more widespread than initially thought. It’s unclear why the hacker(s) would have sat on such a large subset of data for so long before putting it up for sale. Existing LinkedIn users are encouraged to change their passwords immediately. It’s also advisable to enable the site’s two-factor authentication and change passwords on other sites in which users might have recycled old passwords on. Lead image courtesy Twin Design, Shutterstock 2016-05-18 10:45 Shawn Knight

74 The Latest: Google's stepping further into the virtual world MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. (AP) — The Latest from Google's software conference (all times local): 11:30 a.m. Google's stepping further into the virtual world. It announced a new platform for virtual reality called Daydream, and said manufacturers including Samsung, HTC and Huawei would have smartphones capable of handling it this fall. The platform, included in its upcoming Android N operating system, is meant to improve upon the experience of Cardboard, which Google launched two years ago, by making virtual-reality experiences that are more comfortable, higher quality and more immersive. Google said it had created a reference design for a headset that a partner manufacturer would have ready for the fall, and designs for a new controller that has a few buttons, a touchpad, and sensors that track its orientation and where it's pointing. In a demonstration for some 7,000 attendees at its Google I/O conference in Mountain View, California, the Internet search giant showed how the controller could be used to flip digital pancakes, throw things, cast a virtual fishing line and fly a digital dragon. 11:15 a.m. Google is adding a few more features to the next version of its Android operating system in an attempt to outshine Apple's iPhone. The company is promising better graphic and battery performance. It's also adopting a security approach that lets you encrypt specific files rather than the whole phone. Google released Android N to developers two months ago, but still hasn't specified when it will be ready for consumers. The company previously revealed that Android N will offer a split-screen feature so users can toggle between apps more easily. It also will enable users to reply directly to notifications, something iPhones already allow. Apple's split-screen feature works only with iPad tablets, not iPhones. Research firm Gartner says nearly 1.3 billion smartphones running on Android are expected to be sold this year compared with a projected 231,000 iPhones. The updates were touted Wednesday at Google's annual conference for software developers in Mountain View, California. 10:50 a.m. A messaging app that incorporates Google's new voice assistant? Say "hello" to Allo. The company unveiled the new app at its annual conference for software developers in Mountain View, California, on Wednesday. The app, available this summer on both Android and rival Apple phones, allows chatting partners to look up restaurant options and even book a table right in the app. It also gives users an array of emojis and stickers and the option to increase or decrease the size of text to add emphasis. Allo also gives a range of automated responses to questions and even photos, recognizing things like food and dog breeds. In a smack at Snapchat, Allo also features an "incognito" mode that adds end-to-end encryption and allows a person to set a timer on when their chat messages disappear. 10:30 a.m. Following in Amazon's footsteps, Google is unveiling a smart home assistant that lets people listen to music and podcasts, as well as manage tasks such as setting alarms and compiling shopping lists, throughout their home. Called Google Home, the Internet-connected device lets users control it with their voice to listen to music and control lights and thermostats in the home, for example. Mario Queiroz, a vice president at Google, says the sleek, flower pot-like device also lets you ask Google about "anything you want. " Google says that unlike other home assistants, Home will work with other speakers in the house too. In the future, Google says the device could let users control things outside of their home too. The company has not yet named a price, but says it will be available later this year. Sounds familiar? Home echoes Amazon's Echo, a voice- controlled smart speaker. 9 a.m. Google's bare-bones entry into the still-nascent field of virtual reality came two years ago when it unveiled a cheap headset made out of cardboard. The company may now be poised to get more serious, given far more sophisticated options available for sale, including the Oculus Rift from rival Facebook. Analysts are touting virtual reality, a technology that casts its users into artificial, three-dimensional worlds, as one of the industry's most promising areas for growth. Google is keeping plans for Wednesday's software conference under wraps, but the agenda offers several hints: Virtual reality and artificial intelligence, or "machine learning," will be among the focal points. The three-day conference is taking place in Mountain View, California. 7:40 a.m. While virtual reality and artificial intelligence are expected to be big, the core of Google's annual conference is its software — namely the Android system powering 80 percent of the world's smartphones. Google's three-day conference, called Google I/O, starts Wednesday in Mountain View, California. Google gives Android away for free to device makers. Google designs it to highlight its search engine, maps and other features, giving the company more opportunities to sell the digital ads that generate most of its revenue. The bias toward Google's own services is now the subject of antitrust investigation by European regulators trying to determine whether the company is stifling competition in the increasingly important mobile market. Besides updates for the phone, Google is likely to unveil new features coming to other gadgets such as Android Wear smartwatches and possibly Android TV streaming devices. 2 a.m. Google's mobile payment service, Android Pay, is coming to the U. K., marking its first expansion outside the U. S. On Wednesday, Google joins Apple Pay, which launched in the U. K. nearly a year ago. With both services, users merely tap a phone next to a store's payment reader to charge a credit or debit card. But it works only with stores that have newer wireless readers called NFC. Another challenge has been persuading consumers that it's easier than pulling out a plastic card for payment. Apple Pay is also in China, Canada, Australia and Singapore, with Hong Kong and Spain to come. Google says Android Pay will expand to Singapore and Australia this year. Android Pay's expansion comes as Google holds its annual conference for software developers in Mountain View, California. 9 p.m. Thursday Google is expected to dive deeper into virtual reality and artificial intelligence during an annual conference that serves as a launching pad for its latest products and innovations. The three-day Google I/O conference in Mountain View, California, starts Wednesday. Google is keeping its plans under wraps, but the conference agenda makes it clear that virtual reality and artificial intelligence, or "machine learning," will be among the focal points. That has spurred speculation that Google will release a virtual-reality device to compete with Facebook's new Oculus Rift headset, as well as Samsung's Gear VR. Analysts also believe Google may release an artificial-intelligent gadget to compete with Amazon's Echo, which is a cylinder-like device that includes a virtual assistant named Alexa. 2016-05-18 10:42 By The

75 Microsoft selling feature phone business as Nokia plans a comeback through licensing Microsoft has announced it is selling the feature phone business it acquired from Nokia to FIH Mobile, a subsidiary of Foxconn, and the newly-established Finnish company HMD Global for $350 million. The transaction is expected to close in the second half of 2016 and will see around 4,500 employees leave the company. Nokia marked the end of an era when it closed the sale of its devices and services division to Microsoft back in 2014. The once dominant mobile phone player had been left to bite the dust as Apple and Google changed the game. But Nokia is still a mobile phone company at heart, and it has previously hinted at a comeback , only this time around it would focus solely on designing products and then license the designs and Nokia brand to someone that can handle manufacturing, sales and distribution. This is where FIH Mobile and HMD Global come into play. HMD Global is a recently-founded company headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, to be run by former Nokia and Microsoft executive Arto Numella. The company has signed a licensing agreement with Nokia Technologies that gives it the sole use of the Nokia brand on mobile phones and tablets worldwide for the next decade, as well as key cellular patents. HMD will make Nokia-branded phones using Google's Android and will invest $500 million over the next three years "to support the global marketing of Nokia-branded mobile phones and tablets.” It will also have access to FIH's manufacturing and engineering capabilities, mobile technology, and distribution network. Microsoft for its part says it will continue to support Windows 10 Mobile and devices like the Lumia 950. But the announcement marks a further pullback from its struggling mobile phone business, which it bought for $7.2 billion in 2014 and grabbed just 2.2% of the market globally in 2015 according to IDC. Some rumors say Microsoft may be focusing on a Surface Phone launch next year and it's unlikely we'll see another Lumia this year. 2016-05-18 10:00 Jose Vilches

76 Cable is catching fiber: 10 Gbps in both directions demoed by Bell Labs We all know that fiber is the best technology right now for fast internet connections, but sometimes it's too expensive or time consuming to deploy. This is why any technology that harnesses and improves existing deployments of hybrid-fibre coaxial (HFC) cable is so enticing for internet providers. Nokia's Bell Labs has demonstrated new coaxial cable technology called XG-CABLE that significantly improves throughput over existing HFC cables. In point-to-point tests using 1.2 GHz of spectrum, Bell Labs achieved 10 Gbps in both upstream and downstream throughput. In point-to-multipoint they achieved around 8 Gbps down and 7.5 Gbps up. There are some catches to Nokia's new technology, though. Achieving multi-gigabit speeds through HFC is only feasible over short distances, so high-speed networks would still need fiber at street level to provide an extensive backbone. Nokia says XG-CABLE is suited to providing fast throughput over the last 200 meters of a home's internet connection, although prototypes only achieved 10 Gbps over 100 meters. While these length limitations sound pretty restrictive, the good news is that the most expensive part of any high-speed internet deployment is usually the last few hundred meters of cable that directly connects a home to street level networks. In an area with HFC, Nokia's new tech would allow internet providers to improve speeds without replacing curb-to-home cables with fiber. XG-CABLE is designed to easily integrate with CableLabs Full Duplex DOSCIS 3.1 concept specification, with echo cancellation employed to reduce issues with full duplex signals. It still might be some time before new cable specs and XG-CABLE tech are ready, but it will keep HFC alive for just a little bit longer. 2016-05-18 09:00 Tim Schiesser

77 Massive hacking forum gets hacked, members' details leaked online In what must surely be the ultimate definition of irony, one of the world’s largest hacking forums has been hacked and had the private details of over half a million users dumped online. The Nulled. IO board is used to trade and sell credit card and leaked identity information, hacking tools, cracks, and malware- creation kits. On May 6th, the hacker or hackers responsible for the breach dumped a 1.3 GB compressed archive online which when expanded is a 9.45 GB SQL file containing details of the website’s cybercriminal users and their activities. According to RiskBased Security, which discovered the breach, the attack was likely possible due to Nulled. IO’s use of the Ip. Board community forum, which has a number of known vulnerabilities. "Considering this forum promotes the sharing of these activities, it makes this breach quite ironic. Nulled. IO was running the IP. Board community forum commonly known as IP.b or IPb. It appears that the forum was also running an IP. Nexus Setup for its market place as well as VIP forums among a few other IPb plugins," said the company. "While we do not have confirmation as to how this breach occurred at this point, there have been over 4,500 vulnerabilities to date in 2016, and with 185 total vulnerabilities in IP. Board (92 of them do not have a CVE by the way!) it is not hard to make a guess! " RiskBased Security said the full dump contains 536,064 user accounts, 800,593 user personal messages, 5,582 purchase records and 12,600 invoices, which could include donation records. There are also payment methods, Paypal emails, usernames, email addresses, hashed passwords, registration dates, registered IP addresses, and details of transactions. All this information will, of course, likely be of interest to law enforcement officials, especially as it contains so much information about illegal activities. A particularly interesting discovery made by the RiskBased Security team is that there are 20 .gov email accounts in the leaked database that originate from countries such as the US, Turkey, the Philippines, Brazil, Malaysia, and Jordan. There are also a large number of addresses that end in.edu, which is associated with institutions of higher education. It’s not known who was responsible for the breach, but the incident shows that no one, not even the hackers themselves, are safe when it comes to these kind of leaks. 2016-05-18 08:00 Rob Thubron

78 T-Mobile expands Binge On for the fifth time, now has more than 80 partners T-Mobile on Tuesday added more than a dozen new services to its Binge On program as the disruptive wireless provider continues to wage war on the competition and the industry as a whole. Outspoken CEO John Legere broke the news earlier today on Twitter. Partners joining Binge On, in no particular order, include , NBC, Spotify, Tidal, Great Big Story, Kisew, Ligonier Ministries, Noggin, Qello Concerts, Radio Disney, Univision, Univision Noticias and Toon Goggles. Obviously, some of the new partners will have a greater impact than others. The latest expansion brings the total number of participating partners to over 80 . Binge On is a controversial program in which data streamed over your cellular connection from participating partners isn’t counted against your monthly data allotment. The “catch?” Streams are downgraded to DVD quality (480p) so they won’t look quite as nice as they would if you were streaming at full quality over Wi-Fi. You may have noticed that Google Play Music, Radio Disney, Spotify and Tidal already take part in T-Mobile’s Music Freedom program. They’re making the Binge On list today as their video products will no longer count against your monthly data allotment. In announcing the expansion, T-Mobile revealed that its customers have now streamed more than 377 million hours of video via Binge On and are watching up to twice as much content from participating providers. 2016-05-18 07:00 Shawn Knight

79 Virtual reality brings new life to desktop PCs With all the press about the death of PCs we’ve seen over the last several years, you would be excused for thinking that new desktop PC shipments had essentially stopped. But in an ironic case of what’s old is new again, desktop PCs are not only not dead, they’re seeing a rebirth of sorts. To be clear, I’m not predicting a massive resurgence, but they’re actually holding their own and even growing in several different sub segments of the market. Traditional consumer desktop PCs have taken a big hit, with most people who opt for a new PC choosing a notebook. However, there are still a lot of existing desktop PCs in use and, if they’re anything like the main desktop in my household, still doing some important tasks. Our primary family digital photo library (now at 50,000+ photos), for example, still lives on our desktop (as well as in the cloud), as do our Quicken finances, TurboTax taxes, and other critical files. When my son comes home from college, it’s also the machine he often gravitates to for gaming. In fact, gaming is one of the critical drivers for renewed vigor in the desktop market. With the explosive growth of eSports, Twitch and computer gaming overall, there’s very strong interest in desktop-based gaming rigs. Of course, unlike the early days of computer gaming, you no longer have to own a desktop to get high quality graphics, but for fixed installations, many people still prefer them. Throw in innovative new small form factor desktops like Intel’s Skull Canyon NUC and you have people who may not have considered desktops giving them a serious second look. In the commercial world, desktop PCs are far from dead. Believe it or not, desktops still make up more than 50% of all PCs purchased for business. That number is expected to eventually fall below half, but in many business environments, a fixed, large computing device is still very much an asset. After all, most people in businesses don’t travel and don’t need a notebook. As a result, commercial PC desktop volume is expected to increase in the latter years of the decade as businesses start completing their Windows 10 migrations and upgrading their existing PCs. VR headsets from the likes of Oculus and HTC have the most demanding compute and graphics requirements of any consumer-focused application, and they need the raw horsepower that you can now only get from a desktop. The most compelling and newest demand for desktop PCs, however, is being driven by virtual reality. VR headsets from the likes of Oculus and HTC have the most demanding compute and graphics requirements of any consumer-focused application, and they need the raw horsepower that you can now only get from a desktop. If you want the latest iterations of the powerhouse graphics cards from AMD (the Fiji-based Radeon Pro Duo ) and Nvidia (the Pascal-based GTX 1080 ), for example, you have to buy a desktop. As a result, we’re seeing long-time desktop PC brands like Dell-owned Alienware, as well as Dell itself, developing complete new lines of desktop PCs specifically for VR. For now, Alienware (which is celebrating it’s 20- year anniversary in October, by the way) is offering specialized configurations of its X51 small form factor desktop , but it’s not hard to imagine them offering a whole new line of VR-optimized desktops in the future. In addition, Dell has informed me (exclusively) that they will be offering a new high-power and expandable XPS desktop this fall that’s specifically designed for VR applications. Desktop PCs will never again reach the high-level stature that they once held, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to go away either. They still provide the best experience for a wide variety of consumer and business computing applications, and for that reason, will continue to hold an important place among technology solutions for some time to come. Bob O’Donnell is the founder and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a technology consulting and market research firm. You can follow him on Twitter @bobodtech. This article was originally published on Tech.pinions . 2016-05-18 06:00 Bob O

Total 79 articles. Created at 2016-05-19 00:15