The NSA is recording all cellphone calls in the Bahamas
You might want to be careful of what you say over the phone the next time you visit the Bahamas. According to The Intercept, NSA documents leaked by Edward Snowden reveal that the security agency is not just listening to all mobile calls made to, from and within the island nation, but also recording and archiving them for up to a month. Apparently the access was legally obtained via the US Drug Enforcement Administration and is part of a top-secret program called SOMALGET, which itself is a piece of MYSTIC, a larger NSA program that The Washington Post wrote about in March. While MYSTIC can detect metadata such as the time, location and date of the call, SOMALGET can supposedly store “full-take audio” or the call’s entire contents.
The Intercept reports that MYSTIC is already deployed in countries such as Mexico, the Philippines and Kenya, but SOMALGET is unique to the Bahamas and a mysterious “unnamed country” that the publication refuses to divulge in fear of violent retaliation. The documents state that SOMALGET was enacted to locate “international narcotics traffickers and special-interest alien smugglers,” though it appears that the NSA has been recording calls indiscriminately, regardless of their connection to the drug trade. Neither the NSA or any of the countries mentioned had any comment, though the agency did tell The Intercept that it does attempt to “protect the privacy of U.S. persons” for “incidentally collected” communications.
Source: The Intercept
Tune in at 11AM EST tomorrow for our Microsoft Surface liveblog!
It’s been a while since Microsoft announced a new product in its Surface family, but we can almost guarantee there’ll be at least one new model at tomorrow’s NYC event. We’ve heard some rumblings about a Surface Mini running Windows RT, and we wouldn’t be surprised if MS announced a next generation of its Surface Pro as well. In any case, we’ll be there to bring you all the action. Bookmark this page to get our liveblog updates starting tomorrow around 11AM EST. In the meantime, don’t be shy — share your predictions with us in the comments below!
New LG G3 Press Renders Give Us Multiple Angles of the New Flagship
Who is ready for the LG G3? If any of you are like me, every render or photo leak of the LG G3 is catching your eye. Today we get more from our leak king friend, evleaks, and we get multiple angles of the new flagship phone. The three colors the G3 will come in at first will be black, gold, and titanium. That titanium variant is looking the sexiest, but let us know which one you prefer.
Source: @evleaks
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Jobs Biographer Walter Isaacson Suggests Key TV Content Role for Beats’ Jimmy Iovine
Apple is rumored to be purchasing Beats Electronics, with an announcement of the acquisition coming at any moment. The deal is said to include the company’s headphone business, its Beats Music subscription service, and two key executives — Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre, aka Andre Young.
Several reports have suggested that Apple’s major motivation behind the purchase might be the acquihire of Jimmy Iovine, who has strong ties to the music industry thanks to his role as chairman of Interscope Geffen A&M and founder of Interscope Records.
Walter Isaacson, the man behind the famous Steve Jobs biography, is also speculating that Iovine is one of the main reasons Apple has decided to purchase Beats. In a discussion with Billboard, Isaacson suggested Cook is aiming to have Iovine head up the company’s content business, securing music and TV deals that will help Apple launch its much-rumored television product.
Isaacson thinks the Apple-Beats deal is not about headphones or streaming music but rather is about video. He speculates that Cook wants Iovine to run Apple’s content business and help Apple launch the TV product that analysts have been gossiping about for years. The product has been held up because Apple can’t get all the content owners on board.
Iovine has a long history of working with Apple to help the company sign key deals. In 2002, he helped Steve Jobs secure deals with music labels for the iTunes Store and in 2004, he helped persuade U2 to sign a deal with Apple to create the popular U2 special edition iPod.
Looking back at notes he took when writing the Jobs biography, Isaacson noted that Iovine had wanted Apple to acquire Universal Music Group back in 2003, and during that year, there were rumors suggesting Apple was in talks to buy the record company. At the time, Iovine was leading Interscope Geffen A&M, a division of Universal.
For years now, Apple has been working on signing deals with major content providers with the aim of revolutionizing the television industry, but content providers have been reluctant to commit to an agreement that could interrupt traditional revenue streams. Iovine’s many connections in the music industry and his history of helping Apple win key deals could be instrumental in a wider content role with the company.
Maybe Iovine has the charisma and connections to round up the networks the way he did the music labels in 2002, although “it’s a lot more complicated” this time around, says Isaacson. His track record of success in marrying content and tech gives that theory some weight.
Recent rumors have suggested that both Iovine and Dr. Dre could make their first appearances as Apple executives during the company’s Worldwide Developers Conference, set to kick off on June 2.
Samsung Galaxy S5 Now Available via Boost and Virgin Mobile
We knew it was coming. Boost Mobile and Virgin Mobile have both said that they would be launching the Samsung Galaxy S5 with the typical “Coming Soon” tag and landing pages/social shares. Finally, Sprint has made the official announcement that makes the Galaxy S5 officially available for both non-contract carries. The difference between the two won’t be in the price tag for the device, you will be looking at a cool $599.99 to pick one up. Your price differences will come from the plan offerings on the two.
Boost Mobile
Virgin Mobile
Anyone out there looking at heading to Boost or Virgin and dropping some bills for a Galaxy S5?
Source: Sprint Newsroom
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MIT can map the activity of every neuron in an animal’s brain
Scientists have long yearned for a neuron-by-neuron illustration of brain activity; get that and you can see exactly what drives an animal’s thoughts and reflexes. MIT may make those wishes come true, as it just revealed a system that produces a complete 3D neural activity map. The discovery revolves around a light field microscope (which refracts light to create a 3D image) that’s optimized for looking at the electrical pulses of each neuron, right down to the millisecond time level. So far, researchers have created videos showing what’s happening within the entire nervous system of a c. elegans worm, and the brain of a zebrafish larva.
As you might suspect, scaling could be a problem. A c. elegans worm has just 302 neurons, while a human brain has roughly 100 billion; you’d need a much bigger light field to see everything going on inside your own head. At present, the technology is also too low-resolution to see what’s happening in specific parts of neurons, like dendrites. Provided MIT’s technology keeps evolving, though, there’s a real possibility that neuroscientists could pinpoint the nature of brain conditions and produce more effective treatments.
Filed under: Science
Source: MIT News
Whisper app now includes related posts, still keeps your identity anonymous
Whisper, the anonymous secret-sharing app, now delivers a more personalized experience — but don’t worry; your identity will still be hidden. To show you relevant posts without revealing who you are or using your phone’s address book, the Whisper team redesigned the app to show related content after you submit a new secret. In other words, the app isn’t personalized to display confessions from people you know, but instead it delivers content related to your own anonymous secrets. Additionally, the app now sorts Whispers by location, so you’ll be able to zoom into general (not super-specific) areas to see what users are talking about.
This is admittedly a pretty smart solution for personalizing an app that is identity-free by design, and it has the side benefit of encouraging users to share more. According to Whisper CEO Michael Heyward, only 50 percent of users who post secrets will see related content, and lurkers who are only there to browse will never see any. The update is already available at the App Store (see source the link below), and it will arrive on Android in about two weeks.
Filed under: Software
Via: Re/code
Source: Whisper (iTunes)
Scientists find a way to create matter from light
Scientists have long theorized that you can create matter from light by colliding photons, but proving that theory has been a different story — you need the right high-energy particles to even think of trying. However, it looks like that once-impossible dream is close to becoming reality. Researchers at Imperial College London have discovered a technique that should produce electrons and positrons by colliding two sets of super-energetic photons. To create the first batch of photons, you have to first blast electrons with a laser, and then shoot them at a piece of gold; you produce the other batch by firing a laser at the inside of a small gold can to produce a thermal radiation field. If you collide the two photon sources inside the can, you should see electrons and positrons spilling out.
While that sounds like it could be complex, it’s more feasible than you might think. The photon-to-photon collider would use equipment that already exists, and the team is talking to others that can easily make the experiment happen. With that said, a Star Trek-like replicator is still a distant prospect at best — this collision won’t create atoms, let alone full objects. Even if the research doesn’t eventually fulfill our sci-fi fantasies, though, it could still help astrophysicists by recreating conditions from the first 100 seconds after the Big Bang.
[Image credit: CBS / Paramount Network Television]
Filed under: Science
Via: Pocket-lint
Source: Imperial College London, Nature
Twitter eyes SoundCloud to get folks sharing more music
Twitter’s usage stats have shown its growth slowing for quite some time, and now it seems buying a social-minded audio-sharing outfit could be part of the plan for a turnaround. Recode reports that SoundCloud may be part of that strategy, bringing its 250 million users to the 140-character microblogging platform. SoundCloud offers free audio hosting and sharing via its website for socialites to scatter however they see fit — with a paid tier for those who need a extra features. The purchase would carry a steep price tag though, as the site was valued at $700 million after a round of funding back in January. This wouldn’t be Twitter’s first foray into music either, as its failed #Music app sought to bring tunes to users based on their popularity on the social platform. That effort was officially decommissioned last month.
Filed under: Internet, Software
Source: Recode
Android-to-Android Streaming Made Simple With New AllCast Receiver App
A secondary app to AllCast by developer Koushik Dutta, ClockworkMod, has been released to the Play Store today. The new app, AllCast, Receiver is more of a companion app vs a standalone app. You do need to have the original AllCast app installed on your casting device to utilize it. In a nutshell, AllCast Receiver allows you to cast your videos, photos and music from one Android device to another. For instance, share a movie from your phone directly to your tablet for streaming.
As the apps description also points out, it would be a great app to install on your Amazon Fire TV, Ouya, Android Stick or a Google TV. The app is free, but you do need the base AllCast app installed on your casting device in order to ship the content out. The AllCast app is free to try, but has limitations until you get the premium license. Well worth the money of you have a Chromecast and now even more worth the money if you have a tablet, Google TV, Amazon Fire TV or other Android based devices. Pick up the AllCast Receiver app via the Play Store and give it a whirl.
via Phandroid
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