HUGE Selection of Gameloft Games on Sale for $0.99
I don’t know about you guys, but we have about 7-inches of snow sitting outside my door. The thought of even leaving the house is stressful enough, let alone actually having to traverse the terrain in my little Honda. If you are in a similar situation then you might be better suited staying home, staying warm and playing some games. Thankfully, Gameloft has you covered on the gaming front today. A slew of games just went on sale for $0.99 apiece. You could think of it as a 7 for 1 kind of sale in most cases since many of them are usually $6.99. Now is a great time to stock up. Here is the list we know of so far.
- The Amazing Spider-Man
- Order & Chaos Online
- Gangstar Vegas
- The Dark Knight Rises
- Modern Combat 4: Zero Hour
- The Adventures of TinTin
- 9MM
Some of you might already have a few of these from past sales, but it is still a great opportunity for those that don’t have any of them yet. We will keep our eyes peeled to see if any other games from Gameloft get the sale treatment since we don’t see anything on their social feeds or website yet as to what and why the sale is even happening. It could be a promo for the Winter Olympics, but not sure.
CA Bill Requires Antitheft Technology in Smartphones
California State Senator Mark Leno is introducing a bill that would require all cellular phones sold in the state to include antitheft technology, reports The New York Times. This measure is being introduced as a way to curb smartphone thefts, which are on the rise in major metropolitan areas like San Francisco and New York City.
“With robberies of smartphones reaching an all-time high, California cannot continue to stand by when a solution to the problem is readily available,” Senator Leno said in a statement. “Today we are officially stepping in and requiring the cellphone industry to take the necessary steps to curb violent smartphone thefts and protect the safety of the very consumers they rely upon to support their businesses.”
Co-sponsored by San Francisco’s district attorney George Gascón, this kill switch requirement could go into effect as soon as January 1, 2015, if passed by the state legislature and signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown.
Apple likely won’t be affected by the bill as it introduced its own antitheft technology with iOS 7′s Activation Lock feature. This feature locks the device to the user’s iCloud account and is automatically turned on when Find My iPhone is enabled. Thieves are prevented from turning off Find My iPhone, signing out of iCloud or wiping the device without supplying the original account credentials. This feature appears to meet the antitheft requirements of Leno’s bill.
Any advanced mobile communications device that is sold in California on or after January 1, 2015, shall include a technological solution that can render the essential features of the device inoperable when the device is not in the possession of the rightful owner. A technological solution may consist of software, hardware, or a combination of both software and hardware, but shall be able to withstand a hard reset. No advanced mobile communications device may be sold in California without the technological solution enabled.
Gascón and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman expressed interested in Activation Lock when it was introduced at WWDC 2013. After reviewing the technology, Gascón and Schneiderman were impressed with the feature, praising Apple for taking “an important first step towards ending the global epidemic of smartphone theft.”
Cellular industry trade group CTIA will likely oppose the bill and its terms that require a $2500 fine for every phone sold without antitheft technology. The group has argued against kill switches and offered a nationwide database of stolen phones as an alternative. Law enforcement officials, however, claim the US-based blacklist is ineffective as many stolen phones are sold overseas.
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WSJ: NSA collects data from less than one-fifth of all cellphone records
The National Security Agency might be busy collecting your Angry Birds high scores, but our previous notions that the government is collecting all of our phone data may be over-exaggerated, according to the Wall Street Journal. The publication reported this morning that in reality, the agency actually collects less than 20 percent of all call data. So what’s going on? There appear to be a few factors that have formed a bit of a roadblock for the NSA’s collection efforts: The rapid growth of phone use has made it hard for it to keep pace, and it’s also struggled to find ways to remove location data (which is illegal to collect) from phone records; this information contradicts December reports that the NSA collects 5 billion phone location records per day.
Lastly, the NSA’s orders to US operators don’t cover a vast majority of the cellphone records available, and its collection efforts have also been slowed down due to demands on the agency to respond to criticisms from US courts. If these sources are to be believed, apparently the NSA’s collection program isn’t as widespread as we originally thought. Of course, this might be one reason why it’s resorting to World of Warcraft to get information.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless, Mobile
Source: Wall Street Journal
Secret court approves new limits on NSA-collected phone records
Just three weeks after President Barack Obama announced a series of changes designed to (partially) rein in the NSA’s bulk data collection program, at least two of these measures are moving forward. The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has approved two of the president’s measures, both of which limit the agency’s access to Americans’ phone records. In particular, the NSA must now seek court approval every time it wants someone’s records. Additionally, the NSA can only seek information on people who are two degrees of separation, or “hops,” from their main target; the limit used to be three hops.
The ruling, which remains secret, is in many ways a formality for now: The government still controls the database containing metadata on billions of phone records. In his address to the nation last month, Obama called for a third party that would instead manage the database, but it remains unclear what that entity will be, or when it might assume custody of all those phone records.
Filed under: Misc
Via: The Verge
Source: National Journal
California introduces anti-theft “kill switch” bill
It is not uncommon to store basically every bit of personal information on your smartphone. And with cellphones being more popular than they ever have been, if somebody steals your phone, you could lose everything. That’s where a new bill proposed in California hopes to come in.
The idea has been thrown around many times in the past few years, especially with all of the sensitive information that we carry around with us. It turns out, some California lawmakers may want to make it legislation. The bill, if passed, would require all smartphones and tablets sold after January 1st, 2015, to ship with a certain type of security feature. What’s more is that they would fine companies up to $2,500 for each device that ships without this “antitheft solution”.
State Senator Mark Leno is the man proposing this bill, and has backing from California’s District Attorney. Leno explains in an official statement,
“With robberies of smartphones reaching an all-time high, California cannot continue to stand by when a solution to the problem is readily available. Today we are officially stepping in and requiring the cellphone industry to take the necessary steps to curb violent smartphone thefts and protect the safety of the very consumers they rely upon to support their businesses.”
We have seen something along these lines when Google introduced Android Device Manager, and when Apple introduced Activation Lock. But is that enough? Some people seem to think that it isn’t.
The CTIA stated last year that “a kill switch isn’t the answer.” They went on to say that there would be many risks involved, especially with hackers taking advantage of the system. Also, if the owner retrieves the phone at a later date, they will have no way of using it again.
Obviously there is a lot to talk about here. It’s still very early in the process to be making any assumptions, or to be worried about anything. What are your opinions on this? Do you think the government should step in and help with theft? Or do you think Google and Apple can take care of it themselves? Let us know in the comments!
Source: The New York Times
The post California introduces anti-theft “kill switch” bill appeared first on AndroidGuys.
This concept car uses its own reconnaissance drone to spot traffic jams
The idea of receiving traffic updates on your sat nav may suddenly seem tawdry next to this more futuristic alternative dreamed up by Renault: If you’re driving along in its “KWID” concept car and you’re worried about jams up ahead, you simply launch a quadrocopter drone from the car’s roof, send it skyward using a control app on your tablet and then survey the road through its camera. Would it be distracting, trying to perceive two views at once without the multitasking skills of an Apache pilot? Whose insurer would pay out if your drone pranged someone else’s? Fortunately, these questions need not concern us, as Renault readily admits that the KWID will probably never see the light of an assembly plant. And in any case, if the technology does come about one day, the parallel advent of semi-autonomous cars and mind-controlled drones would surely make it practical.
Filed under: GPS, Transportation
Via: Wired, The Verge, AutoExpress
With Xbox, you can enjoy Bonnaroo from your couch
Can’t make it out to Tennessee this June to catch the concerts at Bonnaroo? If you have an Xbox, you won’t have to. A new Bonnaroo app will let you watch the music festival through your console. There will be multiple streams from the four-day show, and you’ll get to socialize with other virtual attendees. You also won’t have to wait until the spring to get a taste of the experience — Bonnaroo will use its Xbox app to announce its artist lineup on February 19th. The internet feed likely won’t have dedicated fans staying at home, but it may be just the ticket for music lovers who’d rather not deal with the crowds.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Microsoft
Source: Xbox Wire
The Engadget Podcast is live at 12PM ET!
With Ben Gilbert currently escaping the DICE-y wilds of Las Vegas, our three podcasting amigos are down to just two for today’s installment. Join in then as Terrence O’Brien and Joseph Volpe walk through the week in tech that was, and dissect the chrysalises Sony and Microsoft are trying so desperately to shed. Don’t know what that means? All the better reason for you to tune in live (and learn) at 12PM.
Apple Again Rumored to Release iOS 7.1 in March
A new report from 9to5Mac claims iOS 7.1 will indeed be released to all iOS users in March, representing the first major revision since iOS 7 was launched publicly in September of last year.
Sources note the next version of iOS 7 will continue with the visual improvements, minor tweaks and bug fixes reported in earlier beta versions seeded to developers.
While recent reports are pegging a launch sooner than later, reliable sources say that Apple is currently planning to ship iOS 7.1, the first significant update to iOS 7, in March. The iOS 7.1 update is said to not have any “secret features,” and it will basically be what we have been told to expect by the past five betas: some user-interface tweaks in the Phone app, an improved Calendar app, speed improvements, and numerous bug-fixes.
BGR originally cited a March release date for iOS 7.1 back in late December, but a follow-up report earlier this week seemed to hedge on that claim somewhat by noting that the update was expected in the “coming weeks.” Slowing increments of build numbers from the developer beta versions suggest the software is nearing a public launch, but whether that date lands in late February or the early March is not clear.
Previous iOS 7.1 betas have included various improvements such as a new “Button Shapes” option in Accessibility, keyboard tweaks that indicate shift and caps locks, a new event list view within the Calendar app and refined icons for the Phone, FaceTime, and Messages app. The unreleased iOS in the Car feature has also been refined in the iOS 7.1 beta testing period, but it is unclear when the functionality will be made available to the public.
Details on features in past beta releases can be found in our previous beta posts: Beta 1, Beta 2, Beta 3, Beta 4 and Beta 5.
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Amazon offering Gold Metal deals on highly popular games for duration of Olympics
Amazon today announced a new promotion which sees the online giant discounting games from around the globe. Starting immediately and running through February 22, there are games slashed as low as $.59 a piece. Not just any old generic titles, mind you, but popular stuff from big name developers. As Amazon puts it these are some of the “Appstore’s most popular titles of all-time”.
Gold Medal discounts on highly rated and some of the Amazon Appstore’s most popular titles of all-time will run from February 7th – 15th, for only $.59, with additional discounts coming from February 16th – 22nd, from developers like 2K and PlayFirst.
Top apps available for only $.59 today include:
- Plants v Zombies
- Cut the Rope: Experiments
- Doodle Jump
- Angry Birds Ad Free
- Rabbids Big Bang
- Angry Birds Star Wars 2
- Ski Safari (Kindle Tablet Edition)
- Fruit Ninja
- The Island Castaway
- Colossatron
As part of Amazon’s Free App of the Day (FAD) program, customers can take home medals with three great titles today and through the weekend. Today’s FAD is Stack the Countries, and FAD’s running through the weekend include Dandelions the Game on February 8th and Deep Sleep with Andrew Johnson on February 9th.
The post Amazon offering Gold Metal deals on highly popular games for duration of Olympics appeared first on AndroidGuys.
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