Month: December 2013

Engineering Mobile

ASUS CEO: The PadFone is coming to America in Q2 2014

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As reported on Engadget. BY RICHARD LAI   ASUS has big ambitions with its PadFones, a unique phone-to-tablet convertible concept that was first introduced back at Computex 2011. While these devices are barely nibbling on the global mobile market (let alone entering the US), the company still stands by its “N+1” philosophy: “to add on a simple change which allows the product to evolve beyond its current capability.” This is evidenced by its five iterations of transformable phones, including the new…

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Google Security

NSA reportedly leveraging Google cookies and leaked mobile location data to identify hacking targets

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As reported on Engadget. BY TIMOTHY J. SEPPALA You know those cookies web services use to track your history and serve up personalized ads? It appears that the government is using them too. The National Security Agency is apparently leveraging a Google-specific cookie to tap into the computers of suspicious users, according to presentation slides Edward Snowdenleaked to The Washington Post. With an assist from Mountain View’s “PREF” file, the NSA can track a target’s web visits, then identify the computer…

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Entertainment Film

First Trailer for the Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending Looks Good

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As reported on Wired. BY ANGELA WATERCUTTER First Trailer for the Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending Looks Good In the future, Mila Kunis is a janitor who might hold the key to the universe. And Channing Tatum is a genetically engineered former soldier tasked with coming to Earth to save her. That’s the general run-down of Jupiter Ascending, the latest sci-fi brain-buster from Lana and Andy Wachowski. And even though it sounds nuts, based on this first trailer it looks like…

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Application Culture

ZeroPoint is the malware cure that could be worse than the disease

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As reported on The Verge. By Russell Brandom SecDev’s new project could stop botnet-powered fraud for good. Should we let it? The internet is, on balance, a very hostile place. More than 70 percent of all email traffic is spam, and a fair portion of that is malware and phishing attempts. One 2012 censuscounted 1.5 billion browser-based malware attacks. A recent Team Cymru map of globally compromised computers showed nearly all of Italy lit up, with southeastern Europe glowing from the…

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SmartPhone Social Networking

Facebook Videos Now Auto-Play On Mobile, Expect Video Ads Soon

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As reported on TechCrunch. by Josh Constine FB could look a lot more like TV soon. While Vine and Instagram Video are booming, you don’t see many people natively uploading videos to Facebook. But now Facebook is bringing auto-play for native videos to all users aftertesting the feature in September. And it’s just the beginning of a huge push to put Facebook in motion. Previously, any video uploaded to Facebook directly or shared to the News Feed from…

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Android Culture

CyanogenMod 11 Screencast video recording is as easy as taking a screenshot

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As reported on Engadget. BY RICHARD LAWLER  One of Android KitKat’s new features is a way for developers to easily make video recordings with the SDK, but what about every day users? After previously demonstrating display streaming software, CyanogenMod developer Koushik Dutta has released a new beta app in the Play Store (join the Google+ Community first for access) that simplifies the process. It does require users to be on one of the latestnightly builds of CyanogenMod 11 to work, but once loaded…

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Apple

Apple’s 12 Days of digital gifts comes to the US for the first time

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As reported on Engadget. BY MARIELLA MOON Apple’s donning the Santa suit again this year to dole out digital freebies, and for the first time, iOS users in the US make it to the “nice” list. Today, the company has launched the annual 12 Days of Gifts for 2013, offering one complimentary song, app, book or movie every day between December 26th and January 6th. In previous years, US iOS users could only look on as folks from…

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Apple

Facebook Erects Supercomputers With Giant Stacks of Mac Minis

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As reported on Wired. BY CADE METZ The Mac Mini. Image: Tiziano Caviglia/Flickr   If you walk into one of the massive data centers that underpin Facebook’s ever-expanding online empire, you’ll find tens of thousands of computer servers. Many of them are designed by Facebook, and most run Linux, the open source operating system that drives so much of the modern web. But those aren’t the only machines you’ll find. You’ll also find Mac Minis. Lots and lots of…

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Photography

What to Get the Smartphone Photographer in Your Life

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As reported on Wired. BY ROBERTO BALDWIN Who needs a fancy DSLR when you have your trusty smartphone with you at all times? It fits in your pocketand it can immediately distribute all the pictures you take across all your social networks. Everyone’s got a friend or family member that’s been pushing the camera-phone envelope — shooting at odd angles, messing with photo apps, and trying to create the perfect light painting. Here are the photo accessories for…

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History

New York’s ‘Roaring Twenties’ come alive with interactive audio map

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As reported on The Verge. By Andrew Webster The term “Roaring Twenties” is used to describe a specific period of economic growth, but it’s an apt description for another reason — the decade was very noisy. Created by a group at the University of Southern California, “The Roaring Twenties” is an interactive site that aims to show this by letting you actually experience those sounds. Focusing specifically on New York City, the site lets you explore…

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