We laid our hands on Fujitsu’s quad-core prototype at the start of the year, it now looks like the phone’s now ready to show itself outside the confines of a perspex box. Wielding a Tegra 3 chipset, there’s still no official name for the incoming handset, but we’re promised admirable battery life and those increasingly typical (for Japan, at least) water resistant credentials. We’ve also been told that this will be close to — if not the — final model of the handset, so we should get to test out that fingerprint sensor in person. Sure, it’s not the only quad-core device we’re expecting to see at MWC, but we’ll welcome it with open arms — if it does make the journey outside of Japan.
Select Microsoft Connect partners — major players like HP — have been given their first taste of Windows 8. According to various sources, the build string currently sits at 7971.0.110324-1900, which is the third milestone build of the successor to Windows 7.
So far, there haven’t been many details revealed about Windows 8. An actual System Restore — which is being referred to as History Vault — has been reported, and the feature will allow users and administrators to completely roll back a system to a previous state. A factory reset option is also said to be included.
We’ve also seen Windows Live integration taking shape on the desktop. It’s believed that you’ll be able to log in to Windows 8 using your Windows Live credentials, not just a traditional offline Windows username and password.
All that’s left now is for a leaked Windows 8 build to show up on a torrent site. Feel free to tip us if you see that happen.
If you’ve ever played sports, you’ve always wanted to measure your athletic ability like the pros. How fast can you run? How high can you jump? Are you any good? The new Nike+ Sports Sensor puts a super smart sensor in your shoe that can measure all that. It’s like wearing Nike’s research labs on your feet. More »
This is one of those posts that could probably be condensed into a tweet: Apple has released the second Preview of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. If you’re running Preview 1, it looks like you’ll first receive a small update via Software Update, and then you can download Preview 2 from the Mac App Store.
There has been some speculation that Apple is getting close to a release or Golden Master build, but judging by 9to5 Mac’s initial findings there’s definitely some way to go. The Golden Master will probably appear at, or just before, the Apple WWDC in June.
So far, it’s looking like the only changes in Preview 2 are the leather bound iCal skin that you can see above, and the main iChat window now combines your AIM, Bonjour and Jabber contacts, like Adium. We’re sure that more details will emerge throughout the day, though, and there’s bound to be lots of invisible changes, too. We’ll update this post when we find out more.
It seems many people see their tablets as a laptop replacement. Tablets work fine for most things that people do with a computer, but their on-screen keyboards leave a lot to be desired when you need to enter a lot of information. Accessories manufacturer’s recognize this, and they have produced a lot of keyboard cases [...]
Comcast is about to launch Xfinity Streampix, a new video-on-demand service for Comcast subscribers. Will this really keep people from quitting cable to sign up for Netflix? More »
A good mobile application is a fine balance between simplicity and functionality. You’re using it on the go, so you don’t have a lot of time to sit there and fumble with the phone to figure it all out. But you also need it to be powerful enough to let you do whatever it is you’re trying to get done.
Hello Expense is one mobile app that gets it right. It’s an expense tracker that lets you use your Android-powered phone to quickly log the money you spend and then analyze it and see where it all went.
I recently had the chance to use it in a real-life situation – a road trip that took a few days and involved quite a few expenses. Logging each expense took seconds, and at the end of each day I could get a great overview of how much money I spent on each category so far.
Categories and tags are user-configurable; the app also sports its own number pad to make number entry easy, regardless of what keyboard you’re using.
Another pre-Mobile World Congress tease from LG? Yup, you’re looking at it. While the company’s technically already spilled the beans on its upcoming Galaxy Note-rival, the Optimus Vu, this occasion marks the first time we’ve gotten to see the phablet in video form. In the roughly 1,000 frames of animation above, you’re treated to closeups of the Vu’s 5-inch 1024 x 768 IPS display, its 8-megapixel camera and a brief demo of its screenshot annotation abilities. That’s really all there is to it, so watch and learn folks, as you mentally prepare yourself for our more intimate rendezvous with it in the coming week.
Simply HDR has the potential of turning your ordinary photos into extraordinary ones. HDR photography has turned into an art form itself, and Simply HDR does a great job of creating these types of images with very little work from the user.
The exploit, which used specially-crafted Flash embedding in Excel spreadsheets, was first reported on March 15 and has since been fixed. RSA was hacked sometime in the first half of March when an employee was successfully spear phished and opened an infected spreadsheet. As soon as the spreadsheet was opened, an advanced persistent threat (APT) — a backdoor Trojan — called Poison Ivy was installed. From there, the attackers basically had free reign of RSA’s internal network, which led to the eventual dissemination of data pertaining to RSA’s two-factor authenticators.
The attack is reminiscent of the APTs used in the China vs. Google attacks from last year — and indeed, Uri Rivner, the head of new technologies at RSA is quick to point out that that other big companies are being attacked, too: “The number of enterprises hit by APTs grows by the month; and the range of APT targets includes just about every industry. Unofficial tallies number dozens of mega corporations attacked [...] These companies deploy any imaginable combination of state-of-the-art perimeter and end-point security controls, and use all imaginable combinations of security operations and security controls. Yet still the determined attackers find their way in.”
What we’d like to know, though, is whether the attack on RSA was caused by Adobe’s lackadaisical approach to patching Flash — or was it the other way around? Was it the RSA attack that first brought the zero-day vulnerability to Adobe’s attention?
Microsoft is continuing its video campaign specifically targeting Google. This time, the target is Google’s continued attempts to move in on Microsoft’s productivity software. Microsoft is eager to point out Google’s set of consumer-level and constantly changing features, lack of flexibility, and privacy issues. They even made a jingle! More »
Here in the world of technology, there’s no denying that developers of even the most creative new products and ideas “stand on the shoulders of giants,” just as innovators in most other realms do too. New ideas inspire more new ideas over time, after all, so it’s not surprising to see myriad commonalities and linkages among them. Lately, however, that notion is being examined a little more closely than usual.
Although Nightline reports that there are nets just about everywhere at Foxconn to catch anyone trying to commit suicide, depression is apparently not that common. The counseling center is sparsely used, and most of the workers were simply tired from their 10-to-12-hour shifts.
Australian carrier Telstra will get the Motorola Xoom 2 — aka the Droid XYBOARD on Verizon here in the States. Nothing has changed, really, from the version we reviewed earlier this year. Same 10.1-inch display, same 1.2GHz processor, with 32GB of storage. Pricing variers depending on the data plan, which starts at $29 a month for 1GB and hits $89 a month for 15GB of data. (Those are Australian dollars, which in addition to sounding cooler than dollars here in the U.S. are also worth slightly more. That's some expensive data.)
Oh, and this guy's still running Android 3.2 Honeycomb. Not surprising, but it's about time we see devices shipping with Ice Cream Sandwich, boys and girls.
Wasps like to invade fruit flies and take over their bodies, like some insect version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Scientists have now discovered that fruit flies have developed a way to defend themselves: alcohol. More »
This song earned Mastodon a Grammy nod. And, for those of you wondering, no. Snorting wood chips will not get you high. The other part about mushrooms giving you super strength and a lush Paul Bunyan beard—scientific FACT. More »
Using information from the Bureau for Investigative Journalism, the people at Public Intelligence have created a Google Map showing all the United States drone bases in Pakistan, some of which are vital for the support of US military forces in the area. More »
The Department of Defense has confirmed that an Air Force U-28A—a plane dedicated to shadowy spec ops—crashed over Djibouti this weekend, killing all aboard. Nobody yet knows what took the commando plane down. More »
Google may be developing a voice activated remote for Google TV devices, if we're to believe the rumors around the Internet today. Last year Google filed for a patent with the USPTO for a new remote and/or Android application that uses Google's cloud assisted voice recognition technology to navigate through the menus on your Google TV. Of course, everyone is comparing it to Siri, but Google has been working on this technology since they were first to market with Voice Actions in August of 2010.
According to the filings, users will be able to speak into their Android smartphone or dedicated Google TV remote, transmit their speech to Google's servers to be analyzed, then the correct intent will be sent back through the network to the GTV unit. There's also indications here to allow the process to work up to a quarter-mile away, so we can tell our television to be on and have Wheel of Fortune playing when we walk in the door. From the patent filing:
the provision of the query to the television may occur when the user is within a set distance of his home also (e.g., by determining with GPS functionality on the smartphone that he is within 1/4 mile of the home), and the television may be turned on automatically as he approaches the home, with the television tuned to a channel that is determined to be most relevant to the query
Add in additional uses like music controls and application commands, and you'll have a full featured voice remote.
Using your Android phone as a remote for Google TV is something we expect from the people in Mountain View. Tying the two together is natural, and we've already seen an Android app remote that uses voice input, and it works well. Having Google take this further can only mean good things for anyone who's interested in talking back to their television. Hopefully, we see something more about this in the near future — I'm ready for it.
Over the last few days, a mass SQL injection attack has been quickly gathering speed. Just three days ago only 28,000 URLs were affected, but at the time of writing, there could be up to 3.8 million infected URLs. Websense has a complete write up the attack, dubbed ‘LizaMoon,’ but here’s the basic gist: it looks like someone is exploiting a vulnerabilty (or vulnerabilities) in hundreds of thousands of websites running on Microsoft SQL Server 2003 and 2005. It’s not yet known whether this is a vulnerability in SQL Server, or simply a case of outdated, unmaintained, and easily-exploitable CMSes.
The attack takes the form of an SQL injection, which then inserts a link to a JavaScript file hosted on the attacker’s server. This is repeated over and over until every Web page in the SQL database has been infected — and considering 3.8 million URLs have been infected, you can see that this is a very easy, and automated, attack.
Fortunately, the JavaScript isn’t particularly malicious: it pops up a rogue AV program called Windows Stability Center, but that’s it. Better yet, the rogue antivirus is already recognized by a bunch of real antivirus suites, including Avast, Panda and Microsoft Security Essentials.
The real problem with SQL injection attacks is that there’s nothing we surfers can do about them. There will always be old and unmaintained websites, and thus SQL injections will remain one of the easiest and most lucrative tools of hackers and spammers alike. All you can do is keep your antivirus and anti-malware software up to date, and pray.
Using some early numbers from both StatCounter and Net Applications, Mozilla’s noisiest hominid, Asa Dotzler, has illustrated Firefox 4′s meteoric rise to around 5% of Web browser global usage share. Internet Explorer 9, which launched two weeks ago, seems to be enjoying a much more casual stroll in the park with just 1.5% of the global Web usage share.
Interestingly, we can see IE9 dipping between March 20 and 21, just before the ‘Important’ Windows Update rolled out. It’s hard to say whether IE9 is only growing because of the installed-by-default Windows Update, but that small dip definitely sticks out — did excitement peter out? Did people download IE9, try it out, and summarily uninstall it? Perhaps, given their close proximity, the stats show an attention shift from Microsoft to Mozilla?
Numbers-wise, if the bottom left corner of the graph shows 2.3 million downloads for IE9, we can guesstimate that that it has now been downloaded 5 million times. Firefox is clocking in at 37 million downloads after five days of public availability.
We wonder whether Microsoft knew its release schedule would coincide so closely with Firefox 4. Internet Explorer 9 — a great browser by almost every metric — was never going to do well against anything emanating from the maws of Mozilla. The main thing, though, is that Microsoft has now shown that it’s serious when it comes to the Open Web. If Internet Explorer 10 is good, and 11 and 12, then we might finally see it compete with the zealous Mozillan horde.
Those benevolent armchair philanthropist Redditors are at it again! Four days ago a ‘self’ post extolling the potential virtues of a Backup Day exploded with 2500 upvotes and 1000 comments — and now World Backup Day 2011 is actually happening.
On March 31, as part of the global data-saving initiative, you are encouraged to back up all of your cherished photos and videos, and important documents. If you’ve ever had a hard disk fail, and not had a backup to fall back on, you’ll know that it’s a bit like losing a sizable fragment of your soul. If you’ve never backed up your important files — or if you only back up sporadically — do it on World Backup Day!
It’s not hard to back up your data, either. A 2TB drive costs only a fistful of dollars, and it takes just a few minutes to set SyncToy for Windows, or Time Machine for Mac, to mirror your data every night. If you prefer a cloud-based solution, there’s always SugarSync and Dropbox. Finally, don’t forget that Bundlelytic has a charity giveaway for three excellent data-backup-and-recovery tools — $160 of software for only $25, and 100% of the proceeds to go the Japanese Red Cross.
Today, Apple unveiled a developer preview of its newest Mac OS, Mountain Lion. The OS introduces more than 100 new features to OS X, and we’ve teased out five of the most important, most innovative aspects of Cupertino’s latest release.
While individually cheap, the cost of your streaming subscriptions can pile up. If you’re feeling the pinch, check out Splitflix. The new service facilitates splitting the cost of your Netflix and Hulu subscriptions with another person. Awesome, as long as it lasts. More »
Speedtest.net is pretty much the go-to site for quickly figuring out how fast (or slow) your connection really is and comparing the numbers your ISP boasts with what it actually delivers. And now it’s got a new coat of paint and a couple of neat features. In brief:
New UI: The map widget is much improved; it actually looks like a map now, and it’s easy to see where you are.
Smart server selection: If there are several test servers nearby, Speedtest will now ping each to see which has the least latency and use that for the test. You can still specify servers manually, too.
User accounts: You can sign up for a free account and aggregate results from several computers/connections.
Speed Wave: This new feature lets you add your test results to the results of many other users, and get a nice composite view.
All in all, you get some nice, new functionality and a snazzier interface to boot. Nice!
Scramble with Friends is one of the most popular iPad apps for the Apple iPad and iPhone. It has been downloaded thousands of times in the Apple App Store and is played by thousands of players around the world. The Apple App Store offers two versions of this game. The Free version allows you to play the full game but there will be some ads in the game. The Deluxe version removes the ads from the game and allows you [...]
Last year CBS and Turner Sports brought every game of the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament home in HD on four cable channels, and streaming for free to PCs and iOS devices. While the broadcast plans remain the same this year, if you want to stream the 41 games broadcast on cable networks then you’ll need to subscribe to an affiliated TV provider (all the major guys except Time Warner) and log into the TNT, TBS, or TruTV website on your Windows PC or Mac. For the other 41 games broadcast on CBS, CBSSports.com is your (free) online resource. Live streaming on mobiles (over WiFi or 3G) has been extended to the Android platform for the first time, however after being offered for free last year the rebranded March Madness Live app will cost $3.99 this time around, which is still less than the $10 it cost in 2010. Check out the press release after the break for all the details on what’s viewable where — cord cutting sports fans will want to make some alternate arrangements.
Stefani Germanotta might be one of the most popular music performers today but many people still have to think a moment before they realize she’s Lady Gaga. Recognizing this, Facebook is putting in place an account verification mechanism for subscribers with a large number of friends.
It’s six months since Ford partnered with Bug Labs to build OpenXC and now the system is ready for third-party developers to get involved. Rather than following Renault and others down the Android route, OpenXC is a dedicated platform designed to bring together third-party apps and hardware. It comes with an Arduino-based interface module that hooks up to the car’s own systems, allowing the software to work with sensors, audio interfaces, safety devices and whatever other add-ons an owner might want to rig up. One app, developed by India’s HCL Technologies, is already complete: it sends location updates to selected contacts to warn them if a driver is running late for a meeting. (Finally, Arduino gets to do something useful.)
Capitalizing on the old stereotype that kids would rather play with the box an expensive toy came in, these Tube Toys ship in cardboard tubes that also become the vehicles’ bodies, leaving just an outer paper sleeve to recycle. More »
Here are two nouns you probably haven’t thought about in a long while: TiVo and Blockbuster, vestiges of the way we used to watch moving images in the recent past. Like what, Friends? Dante’s Peak? I forget. Now they’re divorcing. More »
The TRIM command is an essential part of SSD maintenance and helps keep the drive running at top speed. It’s available natively for Macs using SSD’s purchased from Apple but if you’ve got a third party drive, enabling TRIM requires some fancy Terminal work. Until now, that is. More »
My iPhone already has no problem attracting all manner of mysterious dirt and crap, so the last thing I need is one of these Monster fur cases that’s going to turn it into a magnet for dust, lint, and fuzzballs. More »
Capitalizing on the old stereotype that kids would rather play with the box an expensive toy came in, these Tube Toys ship in cardboard tubes that also become the vehicles’ bodies, leaving just an outer paper sleeve to recycle. More »
Now that Windows 8 images have begun leaking out, it’s only a matter of time until developers start releasing mods for Windows 7 which mimic upcoming features. Over at Into Windows, they’ve spotted one such mod already.
In the earliest Windows 8 images, we saw Windows Live integration on the taskbar. In the far right corner, there’s a user tile displayed. If you’d like to do the same on Windows 7, download Taskbar User Tile from DeviantArt user AngelWZR.
Once installed, your current picture will appear on the taskbar. Click it, and a menu appears which allows you to log off, switch users, and access the control panel. Right now, the mod only works if your taskbar is displayed on the bottom of your Windows desktop.
When you think ICBM, things get Freudian—a long, slender missile erupting from an underground silo or submarine bay, gliding upwards. You probably don’t consider a giant missile dumped from the back of a plane. The Air Force did. More »
Whether you’re looking for a good laugh or a simple trip down memory lane, seeing Windows Mobile 6.1 hobble around like a grumpy old man within Windows Phone might just satisfy both those urges. The technical stunt comes courtesy of the Dark Forces Team, which is now previewing a bit of hackery known as WML (Windows Mobile Loader?). While details of the project have yet to be made public, a video posted to YouTube clearly shows the elderly OS accessible from within Windows Phone on an HTC Gold (HD7). Support for Windows Mobile 6.5 is also in the works, but for the moment, just take a peep at the most important visual treat in the above clip.
Select 
