54835407
submission
Frankie70 writes:
The U.S. National Security Agency has the ability to snoop on nearly every communication sent from an Apple iPhone, according to leaked documents shared by security researcher Jacob Appelbaum and German news magazine Der Spiegel.
An NSA program called DROPOUTJEEP allows the agency to intercept SMS messages, access contact lists, locate a phone using cell tower data, and even activate the device’s microphone and camera.
54711809
submission
Frankie70 writes:
Taiwan’s Fair Trade Commission has hit Apple with a small fine and warned the company that it may face a more substantial penalty if it doesn’t stop interfering with carriers’ iPhone pricing and the prices of the plans carriers sell alongside the iPhone. “Through the email correspondence between Apple and these three telecom companies we discovered the companies submit their pricing plans to Apple to be approved or confirmed before the products hit the market,” Taiwan’s FTC said in a statement.
52933277
submission
Frankie70 writes:
From Reuters, U.S. tech giant Apple is under investigation in Italy for allegedly hiding 1 billion euros ($1.34 billion) from the local tax authority, two judicial sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
Milan prosecutors say Apple failed to declare to Italian tax authorities 206 million euros in 2010 and 853 million euros in 2011, one of the sources said, confirming a report by Italian magazine L'Espresso.
The Italian subsidiary of Apple booked some of its profit through Irish-based subsidiary Apple Sales International (ASI), thus lowering its taxable income in Italy, the source said.
50180559
submission
Frankie70 writes:
One of the most enticing "what-ifs" of recent years has come true: Microsoft has purchased Nokia's Devices and Services unit, it announced today. It unites Windows Phone 8 with its biggest hardware supporter, and gives the company an integrated solution across hardware and software. When the deal closes in the first quarter of 2014, Microsoft will pay 3.79 billion Euros for Nokia's business, plus another 1.65 billion Euros for its portfolio of patents.
50177015
submission
Frankie70 writes:
In Europe, Windows Phone has seen promising growth, posting its highest ever market share of 8.3 per cent across the five major European markets – the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Year-on-year this is an increase of 3.3 per cent. Windows Phone’s success has been in convincing first time smartphone buyers to choose one of its devices with 42% of sales over the past year coming from existing featurephone owners
49180061
submission
Frankie70 writes:
Michele Catalano was looking for information online about pressure cookers. Her husband, in the same time frame, was Googling backpacks. Wednesday morning, six men from a joint terrorism task force showed up at their house to see if they were terrorists. Which begs the question: How'd the government know what they were Googling?
47248269
submission
Frankie70 writes:
So, America's National Security Agency has been tapping up US internet giants to gather information about foreigners online, allegedly sharing that data with Britain's GCHQ — and gobbling up details about US citizens' phone calls.
After the past month's privacy scandal after privacy scandal and liberty scandal after liberty scandal involving the NSA and the American administration, I'm rapidly moving from being "uncomfortable hosting my data in a US-controlled cloud" to "feeling ethically bound to vote with my wallet in order to send a message".
That power belongs to each and every one of us expressed through something as simple as where we choose to invest the money we spend. I believe it is our duty to choose wisely and to make those choices based on more than mere pragmatism.
If you know of any providers of internet services who have – deliberately or accidentally – created a business free of American legal encumbrances, please, leave a note in the comments. The ability to choose differently starts with knowledge and we might as well start building that list here.
44641831
submission
Frankie70 writes:
Overall, IDC says Windows Phone and Windows Mobile devices accounted for six percent of the 227 million smartphones shipped worldwide in the fourth quarter of 2012. For the year, Windows Phone made up 2.6 percent, however, the analyst firm is predicting Windows Phone to be the fastest growing platform between now to 2016 with a compound annual growth rate of 71.3 percent. IDC expects Windows Phone to account for 11.4 percent of smartphone shipments by 2016, largely off the back of declining Android market share.
Windows Phone handsets have outsold the iPhone in seven markets including India, analyst firm IDC has revealed, and beat out BlackBerry in 26. Some of the countries where Windows Phone pipped the iOS handset in Q4 2012 were Argentina, India, Poland, Russia, South Africa and the Ukraine.
41698753
submission
Frankie70 writes:
A school which gave out iPads to every pupil in hope of improving their education has admitted that just a year later half the costly devices have been broken.
Honywood Community Science School dished out iPad2 tablets to its 1,200 pupils a year ago, at vast cost to the taxpayer.
Apple, the manufacturer of iPads, is said to be aggressively targeting the school market and at the time headteachers were accused of ‘falling for a gimmick’.
28600687
submission
Frankie70 writes:
Siri’s dirty little secret is that she’s a bandwidth guzzler, the digital equivalent of a 10-miles-per-gallon Hummer H1.
A study by Arieso shows that users of the iPhone 4S demand three times as much data as iPhone 3G users and twice as much as iPhone 4 users, who were identified as the most demanding in the 2010 study.
In all, Arieso says that the Siri-equipped iPhone 4S “appears to unleash data consumption behaviors that have no precedent.”
28171868
submission
Frankie70 writes:
Willow TV owns some of the rights to broadcast cricket in the USA. Several unethical websites resold the willow stream and charged money from the customers. Willow has got hold of the customer's email ids and have sent them the following email which essentially says that we know you purchased a pirated stream and that we will not sue you if you subscribe to our services for 1 year. The immigrants from the sub-continent, England, Australia etc form a market for cricket broadcasting services in the USA.
27743666
submission
Frankie70 writes:
A 12-year-old boy got a shock when he tried out the new iPhone 4S in a shop it answered: 'Shut the f*** up, ugly t***.'
Charlie Le Quesne had been trying out the new gadget's Siri voice assistant system in a Tesco branch in Coventry when it came out with the string of profanities.
The obscene response came after he had asked the phone: 'How many people are there in the world.'
27473846
submission
Frankie70 writes:
A few hours ago, hacking collective Anonymous disclosed that not only has it hacked the Stratfor website (since confirmed by Friedman himself), but has also obtained the full client list of over 4000 individuals and corporations, including their credit cards (which supposedly have been used to make $1 million in "donations"), as well as over 200 GB of email correspondence.
26828018
submission
Frankie70 writes:
Starting Sunday, December 11th at 6:00 p.m. Central time, 16GB and 32GB Touchpads will be available on HP's ebay store. A $79 accessory bundle will also be available, which includes a case, charging dock and wireless keyboard. The caveat with this deal is that these are refurbished TouchPads rather than the brand new models sold during the first firesale.
24631840
submission
Frankie70 writes:
It took more than three years, but Microsoft has finally learned to stop worrying and love Hadoop. Microsoft acquired a Hadoop pioneer as far back as the summer of 2008, its relationship with the platform has been uneasy at best, as the company continued to shed its traditional aversions to open source software. Any aversion to Hadoop disappeared on Wednesday, when the company announced that it will integrate the platform with future versions of its relational database, SQL Server, and its platform cloud, Windows Azure, an online service for hosting and readily scaling applications. The company is now working to port the Hadoop platform to Windows
