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Cloud

Tim Cook Says Apple Can't Read Users' Emails, That iCloud Wasn't Hacked 191

Posted by timothy from the our-cooperation-was-strictly-reluctant dept.
Apple CEO Tim Cook insists that Apple doesn't read -- in fact, says Cook, cannot read -- user's emails, and that the company's iCloud service wasn't hacked. ZDNet presents highlights from Cook's lengthy, two-part interview with Charlie Rose. One selection of particular interest: Apple previously said that even it can't access iMessage and FaceTime communications, stating that such messages and calls are not held in an "identifiable form." [Cook] claimed if the government "laid a subpoena," then Apple "can't provide it." He said, bluntly: "We don't have a key... the door is closed." He reiterated previous comments, whereby Apple has said it is not in the business of collecting people's data. He said: "When we design a new service, we try not to collect data. We're not reading your email." Cook went on to talk about PRISM in more detail, following the lead from every other technology company implicated by those now-infamous PowerPoint slides.

Submission + - Microsoft goes cross-platform with a universal keyboard for Android and iOS

Submitted by DroidJason1
DroidJason1 writes: Microsoft has released a new keyboard that is designed to work with all of your devices. The Universal Mobile Keyboard, as Microsoft calls it, works on Android, iPad, iPhone, and Windows. Microsoft is taking the "one experience for everything in your life" mantra quite seriously. The keyboard connects to devices via Bluetooth, and works with Windows 8 and higher; Windows RT; Apple iOS 6 and higher; and Android 4 or higher. It features an OS switch that lets you change from one operating system to another while maintaining a fully functional keyboard. The keyboard cover has an integrated stand that can easily be detached too. The keyboard hits retail in October for $79.95.

Submission + - Researchers' new app outs iPhone and Android phone energy hogs (networkworld.com)

Submitted by alphadogg
alphadogg writes: Researchers from the United States and Sweden have launched free iOS and Android smartphone/tablet software that singles out which apps take the biggest toll on your device batteries and also illustrates fragmentation of Apple and Android mobile OSes. The NODES research group at the University of Helsinki's Department of Computer Science has joined forced with the University of California at Berkeley to deliver the Carat app and has published live stats http://carat.cs.berkeley.edu/s... based on some 2 terabytes of data extracted from Carat, which has been downloaded by about 750,000 users who employ more than 300,000 apps.
Australia

Quickflix Wants Netflix To Drop Australian VPN Users 172

Posted by timothy from the all-we-want-is-a-captive-audience dept.
ashshy writes 200,000 Australian residents reportedly use Netflix today, tunneling their video traffic to the US, UK, and other Netflix markets via VPN connections. A proper Netflix Down Under service isn't expected to launch until 2015. Last week, Aussie video streaming company Quickflix told Netflix to stop this practice, so Australian viewers can return to Quickflix and other local alternatives. But Quickflix CEO Stephen Langsford didn't explain how Netflix could restrict Australian VPN users, beyond the IP geolocating and credit card billing address checks it already runs. Today, ZDNet's Josh Taylor ripped into the absurdity of Quickflix's demands. From the article: "If Netflix cuts those people off, they're going to know that it was at the behest of Foxtel and Quickflix, and would likely boycott those services instead of flocking to them. If nothing else, it would encourage those who have tried to do the right thing by subscribing and paying for content on Netflix to return to copyright infringement."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Any Place for Liberal Arts Degrees in Tech? (dice.com)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: A new article in Fast Company suggests tech CEOs want employees with liberal arts degrees, because those graduates have critical thinking skills. Meanwhile, a new article on Dice (yes, yes, we know) posits that STEM degrees such as data science, IT admin, and electrical engineering are what science-and-tech companies are going to want for the foreseeable future. What do you think? What place do those with liberal arts degrees have in companies such as, say, Tesla or a biomedical engineering firm?

Submission + - European Union: We don't want public input on TAFTA/TTIP or CETA (techdirt.com)

Submitted by sandbagger
sandbagger writes: One of the most glaring problems with TAFTA/TTIP is the lack of input from the public in whose name it is being negotiated says TechDirt. One million signatures must be gathered within one year to force the EU to respond to a public petition. Additionally, in seven EU states a specific minimum of supporters must be achieved, e.g. 72,000 signatures in Germany, 55,500 in France, or 54,750 in the United Kingdom et cetera.

This comes from a new site set up by the Stop TTIP Alliance, a pan-EU coalition that aims to seek support for the following petition: We invite the European Commission to recommend to the Council to repeal the negotiating mandate for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and not to conclude the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA).
Communications

Browser To Facilitate Text Browsing In Emergencies 40

Posted by timothy from the do-you-want-to-upgrade-flash-now dept.
Rambo Tribble (1273454) writes "Programmers at Fast Company are developing the Cosmos browser to allow text browsing from Android phones when networks are buckling under the load of local disasters. A common phenomenon when disaster strikes is the overloading of cell and data networks by massively increased traffic. The Cosmos browser is intended to facilitate using SMS text messages, which often still get through in such circumstances. To quote one developer, "We want this to be a way for people to get information when they're in dire need of it." Sort of a Lynx comes to Android affair. The Smithsonian contemplates the possibilities, here."

Feed Google News Sci Tech: Tim Cook says Apple doesn't read users' emails, insists iCloud 'wasn't hacked' - (google.com)

From feed by feedfeeder

ZDNet
Tim Cook says Apple doesn't read users' emails, insists iCloud 'wasn't hacked'
The Post-Standard - syracuse.com
Apple CEO Tim Cook discusses the iPhone 6, privacy concerns and more during an interview with Charlie Rose on Monday, Sept. 15, 2014. (Video still). Print Geoff Herbert | gherbert@syracuse.com By Geoff Herbert | gherbert@syracuse.com The Post-...
Tim Cook believes users have a right to privacyShiny Shiny
Tim Cook tells Apple customers that it isn't a 'treasure trove' for NSAMCV
Apple CEO Tim Cook: Unlike other companies, we don't want your data, just your ... The Independent

all 64 news articles

Submission + - Quickflix Wants Netflix to Drop Australian VPN Users

Submitted by ashshy
ashshy writes: 200,000 Australian residents reportedly use Netflix today, tunneling their video traffic to the US, UK, and other Netflix markets via VPN connections. A proper Netflix Down Under service isn't expected to launch until 2015. Last week, Aussie video streaming company Quickflix told Netflix to stop this practice, so Australian viewers can return to Quickflix and other local alternatives. But Quickflix CEO Stephen Langsford didn't explain how Netflix could restrict Australian VPN users, beyond the IP geolocating and credit card billing address checks it already runs. Today, ZDNet's Josh Taylor ripped into the absurdity of Quickflix's demands. From the article: "If Netflix cuts those people off, they're going to know that it was at the behest of Foxtel and Quickflix, and would likely boycott those services instead of flocking to them. If nothing else, it would encourage those who have tried to do the right thing by subscribing and paying for content on Netflix to return to copyright infringement."

Submission + - Micron Releases 16nm Process SSDs With Dynamic Flash Programming (computerworld.com)

Submitted by Lucas123
Lucas123 writes: Micron's newest client flash drive line, the M600, uses its first 16nm process technology and dynamic write acceleration firmware that allows the flash to be programmed as SLC or MLC instead of using overprovisioning or reserving a permanent pool of flash cache to accelerate writes. The ability to dynamically program the flash reduces power use and improves write performance as much as 2.8 times over models without the feature, according to Jon Tanguy, Micron's senior technical marketing engineer. The new lithography process technology also allowed Micron to reduce the price of the flash drive to 45 cents a gigabyte, meaning a 1TB 2.5-in SATA SSD now retails for $450.

Submission + - Browser to Facilitate Text Browsing in Emergencies

Submitted by Rambo Tribble
Rambo Tribble writes: Programmers at Fast Company are developing the Cosmos browser to allow text browsing from Android phones when networks are buckling under the load of local disasters. A common phenomenon when disaster strikes is the overloading of cell and data networks by massively increased traffic. The Cosmos browser is intended to facilitate using SMS text messages, which often still get through in such circumstances. To quote one developer, "We want this to be a way for people to get information when they're in dire need of it." Sort of a Lynx comes to Android affair. The Smithsonian contemplates the possibilities, here.

Submission + - The FBI Just Finished Its Insane New Facial Recognition System (gizmodo.com)

Submitted by Advocatus Diaboli
Advocatus Diaboli writes: "After six years and over one billion dollars in development, the FBI has just announced that its new biometric facial recognition software system is finally complete. Meaning that, starting soon, photos of tens of millions of U.S. citizen's faces will be captured by the national system on a daily basis. The Next Generation Identification (NGI) program will logs all of those faces, and will reference them against its growing database in the event of a crime. It's not just faces, though. Thanks to the shared database dubbed the Interstate Photo System (IPS), everything from tattoos to scars to a person's irises could be enough to secure an ID. What's more, the FBI is estimating that NGI will include as many as 52 million individual faces by next year, collecting identified faces from mug shots and some job applications. So if you apply for any type of job that requires fingerprinting, for instance, those prints (which will now also likely be asked for along with a photo) will be sent off to the government for processing."

Here are two recent and related news items.

Boston police used facial recognition software on thousands of people at a music festival (http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/266552/speedreads-boston-police-used-facial-recognition-software-on-thousands-of-people-at-a-music-festival)

"Attendees of last year's Boston Calling music festival were — without their knowledge — test subjects for the Boston Police Department's new facial recognition software. The IBM program — which also analyzes each individual's build, clothes, and skin color — captured video of thousands of people, 50 hours of which is still intact."

and

General Motors May Be The First To Offer Cars That Detect Distracted Drivers (http://www.washingtonpost.com/cars/general-motors-may-be-the-first-to-offer-cars-that-detect-distracted-drivers/2014/09/02/d00b5bc4-32b9-11e4-9f4d-24103cb8b742_story.html)

"According to CNBC, the technology will come from an Australian firm called Seeing Machines. It will take the form of a series of cameras paired with facial recognition software — kind of like the software that Facebook uses to auto-tag your friends in photos, but in this case, it'll take note of things like the rotation of the driver's head and how often he/she blinks. That will help the system determine whether a driver is looking at the road, at a cell phone, or even nodding off. If the situation proves dire enough, the system could theoretically slow the vehicle and force the driver to pull over — not unlike a certain attention-powered car we've seen before."
Open Source

New Release of MINIX 3 For x86 and ARM Is NetBSD Compatible 93

Posted by timothy from the big-and-fancy dept.
An anonymous reader writes MINIX 3 is a small POSIX-compliant operating system aimed at high reliability (embedded) applications. A major new version of MINIX 3 (3.3.0) is now available for download at www.minix3.org. In addition to the x86, the ARM Cortex A8 is now supported, with ports to the BeagleBoard and BeagleBones available. Finally, the entire userland has been redone in 3.3.0 to make it NetBSD compatible, with thousands of NetBSD packages available out of the box. MINIX 3 is based on a tiny (13 KLoC) microkernel with the operating system running as a set of protected user-mode processes. Each device driver is also a separate process. If a driver fails, it is automatically and transparently restarted without rebooting and without applications even noticing, making the system self-healing. The full announcement, with links to the release notes and notes on installation, can be found at the Minix Google Groups page.

Feed Google News Sci Tech: Uber Judge Overturns National Ban After Finding No Emergency - Businessweek (google.com)

From feed by feedfeeder

Reuters
Uber Judge Overturns National Ban After Finding No Emergency
Businessweek
Uber Technologies Inc. won the reversal of a nationwide ban of the company's ride-hailing app after judges said a group of taxi dispatchers improperly used emergency procedures to obtain the initial court order. While the judges still think Uber's service...
Judge overturns Uber ride-sharing ban in GermanyBBC News
German judge set to rule on Uber injunction appeal on TuesdayReuters
Frankfurt court lifts national Uber banThe Local.de
Business Spectator
all 36 news articles

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