BlackBerry ‘Venice’ allegedly coming to the Big Four U.S. carriers in November
BlackBerry’s upcoming Android-powered phone, codename Venice, is starting to unofficial make appearances on a frequent basis. Alleged images of the device, including a new one showing the curved display and physical keyboard (seen above), have been appearing online since early July. Between Tuesday night and today, Evan Blass has shared an abundance of information regarding BlackBerry’s product that is tasked with turning around the company’s misfortunes.
Customers of the four largest carriers in the United States will be happy to know that Venice is expected to available this November from Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint. Rather than partnering with a single carrier to keep the device exclusive, BlackBerry would be going for mass availability by allowing the major carriers to sell Venice.
Blass also shared what looks to be a promotional image highlighting select software features from Venice. BlackBerry will include Content Transfer, a method to bring files from one device to Venice. Based on the description, Content Transfer will move values with Google Drive. BlackBerry Hub will be the place for users to see messages, emails, and notifications from apps and services to be housed in a single place. And, along with Chromecast support, Venice will ship with at least Android 5.0 Lollipop.
And here are two promotional teasers that Blass obtained:
Eye candy. pic.twitter.com/GtJwOfOus8
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) August 19, 2015
.@halfnibble More of an “Android Maya job,” innit? pic.twitter.com/4Fhll0Bfv0
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) August 19, 2015
Is anyone else getting excited to see what BlackBerry is going to do with Android?
Source: Evan Blass (Twitter)
Come comment on this article: BlackBerry ‘Venice’ allegedly coming to the Big Four U.S. carriers in November
Verizon HTC One M9 getting Android 5.1 update August 20th
Verizon HTC One M9 users have been growing tired of waiting for their Android 5.1 update. We have good news for you – it’s finally time for your device to get upgraded, and the manufacturer has decided to hit a few birds with a single stone.
HTC’s own Mo Versi, VP of product management at HTC, took it to Twitter to tell us Verizon finally approved the Lollipop 5.1 update. He goes on to mention the software will be rolling out starting tomorrow, August 20th.
Why did it take them so long? Well, we may understand the issue now. It turns out this update comes with more than just the Android 5.1 software. In addition, HTC has added the Stagefright vulnerability patch and enabled bands 3 & 7 (for roaming).
You have heard about the Stagefright weakness that left about 95% of all Android devices susceptible to MMS attacks, right? It was no joke, so it’s good to see most manufacturers got the ball rolling on those patches right away. Now your HTC One M9 from Verizon is protected, as well!
HTC One (M9) Verizon customers! Received approval for L5.1 which will OTA out tomorrow. Includes Stagefright fix,Band 3 & 7 enabled -roaming
— Mo Versi (@moversi) August 19, 2015
Remember, these updates don’t always show up right away. They are gradually rolled out to all users, so you may not see the notification show up immediately. You could jump into the settings and check for upgrades from time to time, but just try not to smash your screen checking every minute. The update will come!
Related HTC One M9 videos
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Uber’s background checks reportedly missed criminal records
Los Angeles and San Francisco are convinced that Uber’s background checks aren’t as good as the company claims they are, and it looks the two cities might have ample proof that this is a real, consistent problem. Their district attorneys have amended a lawsuit against Uber to provide evidence that the ridesharing outfit didn’t unearth the criminal records of 25 drivers between the two regions. Several of those drivers were reportedly convicted of extremely serious crimes, including murder and sex offenses. The attorneys argue that this is proof that Uber is making “false and misleading” claims. It’s touting a tight screening process, but genuine threats to passengers are slipping through the cracks.
As you might gather given its history of fighting legal action, Uber isn’t having any of this. A spokesperson tells the New York Times that the company’s background checks are as good (or rather, as imperfect) as those for taxi drivers. “Neither is 100 percent foolproof,” Uber says, pointing out that some taxi drivers were convicted of similar heinous crimes. While that’s true, the question isn’t whether or not Uber is flawless — it’s whether or not the firm is doing what it can to both filter out dangerous candidates and tell the truth to potential customers.
[Image credit: AP Photo/Jeff Chiu]
Filed under:
Transportation, Internet
Source:
New York Times
Tags: backgroundcheck, crime, CriminalRecord, internet, lawsuit, losangeles, ridesharing, safety, sanfrancisco, transportation, uber
Valve and JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot made ‘Team Fortress 2’ football
Back when Valve and JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot production company announced a partnership involving games and film projects it came as a complete surprise. That theme continues with the duo’s first collaboration: a mode for Team Fortress 2 combining soccer, hockey and basketball dubbed “PASS Time.” It’s only in beta as of now (a concept that Bad Robot found immensely intriguing, apparently) though. The official game description is as follows:
“RED and BLU face off in an epic battle to score more goals than their opponents. Coordinated passing, aerial shots, interceptions, team-based formations and plays, defensive lines and the like make for strategically chaotic play.”
And there you have it. It’s not a JJ Abrams-helmed Half-life flick, and it isn’t quite a Lost game made by Gabe Newell either, but it’s a start. There are more details over at the source including bits on different strategies like this gem: “As with most sports, try not to die. Especially if the match ends in a tie — ’cause that’s when true Sudden Death kicks in.” Should you want to play, all you have to do is boot the game.
Filed under:
Desktops, Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD
Source:
Team Fortress
Tags: badrobot, basketball, beta, football, gaming, hd, hdpostcross, jjabrams, mod, passtime, pcgaming, soccer, teamfortress, teamfortress2, valve
NASA satellites to predict hurricane paths by studying their cores
NASA may soon eliminate much of the uncertainty in predicting the paths of hurricanes and other giant storms. The agency is building CYGNSS (Cyclone Global Navigation Satellite System), a flock of eight microsatellites that should track hurricanes more effectively than any one full-size craft can manage. They’ll be the first satellites to look at the inner core of a storm, giving them a good estimate of the wind speeds and thus the path of those swirling air currents. They’ll also get updated images of the tropics within a few hours instead of a few days, so meteorologists shouldn’t be caught off-guard if a hurricane quickly gathers momentum or changes direction. When CYGNSS starts helping out during the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season (between June and November), it could do a lot to help coastal residents prepare for natural disasters.
Filed under:
Science
Source:
NASA
Tags: cyclone, cygnss, hurricane, microsatellites, nasa, satellite, science, space, weather
Xiaomi officially unveils MIUI 7
Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi took its official wraps off its new MIUI 7 earlier today. The new interface aims at bringing more customization features along with a large boost in responsiveness. MIUI 7 will set out to replace MIUI 6 on previous handsets.
MIUI 7 will hit many of Xiaomi’s handsets in the near future beginning with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 2. The new skin includes dozens of new features. Here is a list including some of the major additions:
- New built-in themes and theme creator
- MUSE toolkit
- New fonts with larger sizes
- Newly designed MIUI gallery with new searching feature
- Battery consumption improvements
- Auto DND mode switch
- Faster animations and better responsiveness
Xiamoi plans to release MIUI 7 around the world starting on August 24th. The roll out will begin with Xiaomi’s newest handsets and will eventually hit older handsets at a later date. If you missed anything, you can watch Xiaomi’s whole presentation in the embedded video below.
Click here to view the embedded video.
Source: MIUI
Come comment on this article: Xiaomi officially unveils MIUI 7
Samsung to Appeal to U.S. Supreme Court in Ongoing Patent Battle With Apple
Samsung is planning to take its ongoing patent war with Apple to the United States Surpreme Court, reports the San Jose Mercury News. In court papers filed today, Samsung said that by November it would ask the Supreme Court to hear its latest appeal.
“The questions present issues of enormous importance to patent litigation and the scope of innovation, especially in high-technology industries,” Samsung’s legal team wrote in a bid to hold off paying Apple hundreds of millions of dollars in damages for the patent violations.
Samsung’s decision comes following a rejection from the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals last week, where the court refused Samsung’s request for a new trial. Samsung had asked the court to reconsider a decision earlier this year that left the company on the hook for a $548 million payout to Apple.
Samsung and Apple have been battling over patent infringement issues since 2012, when a jury ruled Samsung willfully violated several Apple patents, resulting in $1 billion in damages. Since then, Samsung has been fighting the ruling, and over the course of several appeals and a partial retrial, has gotten the damages reduced to the aforementioned $548 million total. If Samsung is successful, the Supreme Court could throw out another $400 million in damages.
Earlier this week, the United States Patent and Trademark Office invalidated a key iPhone design patent that was used in the Apple v. Samsung lawsuit, handing down a non-final rejection that Samsung could use in its appeal to the Supreme Court. Samsung also has the backing of technology companies like Facebook, Google, eBay, HP, and Dell, who have claimed the ruling against Samsung would “lead to absurd results and have a devastating impact on companies.”
Samsung may, however, have difficulty getting the Supreme Court to hear its case. Of the thousands of cases that the Supreme Court is asked to review each year, it agrees to hear approximately 100 to 150.
Pocket Casts for Android lets you see what people near you are listening to
If you use Android and love podcasts, chances are good you’ve stumbled upon the Pocket Casts app. It’s well-designed, easy to use and includes a host of excellent features to help you discover new podcasts. Today, developer Shifty Jelly is adding another new discovery option, and it’s a rather unconventional one: Pocket Casts now includes a “Nearby” feature that shows you what other users near you are listening to. If you go to the “Discover” tab in Pocket Casts and tab on “Nearby,” you’ll see the top podcasts being listened to by others who’ve enabled this sharing feature. You’ll also see what shows you have in common with other users near you (chances are good you’ll be seeing Serial pop up a lot here).
How useful this feature will be remains to be seen — it’ll only work with other Android users listening to Pocket Casts at any given moment, leaving iOS users out in the cold. Fortunately, Shifty Jelly says it is working on bringing a “massive” update to its iOS app in the near future. This Nearby feature seems like a shoo-in for that update, and we’re hoping that it’ll let you see anything Pocket Cast users are playing — regardless of which OS they’re using. Until then, the latest version of Pocket Casts for Android is available in the Google Play store for $3.99.
Source:
Google Play, Shifty Jelly
Tags: android, mobilepostcross, nearby, pocketcasts, Podcasts, shiftyjelly
Ashley Madison leaked data is now searchable (but don’t)
If you just returned from an isolated island vacation (or perhaps you live under a particularly sweet and naïve rock structure), you may not have heard that notorious “dating service” Ashley Madison was hacked. The controversial site is billed as a social network and dating service for married people looking for extramarital affairs. The hacked data has been publicly released, and services that search for the email addresses used on Ashley Madison’s site immediately began to populate the web.
Notably, Trustify — a service that connects people to vetted private investigators — has launched a site where customers enter an email to see if it was part of the Ashley Madison hack. According to Trustify, both customers of Ashley Madison’s services and suspicious spouses are checking the database for breached emails. While Ashley Madison’s parent company, Avid Life Media, has issued a statement that no users’ full credit card numbers were stolen, much of the damage has already been done. A representative has said that many searches are resulting in customers booking a private investigator through Trustify. Other sites that will perform a similar search include haveibeenpwned.com and ashleymadisonleaked.com. Not that you should really be searching any of them.
Source:
Wired
Tags: AshleyMadison, dating, DatingSite, hack, Hacked, hacks, security, Trustify
MLB allows Apple Watch in dugouts, but phones remain off limits
For coaching in its annual All-Star Game, Major League Baseball gave Kansas City Royals manager Ned Yost an Apple Watch. As you might expect, Yost has been wearing quite a bit — even during games when cellphones and other devices are banned from the dugouts. The wearable raised some concerns over cheating, but after the league reached out to the manager for an explanation, the Apple Watch can remain on the wrists of team staff seated on the bench. Until now, the only approved device was telephone used to call from the dugout to the bullpen to discuss pitching changes. Of course, without an iPhone close by, the Apple Watch isn’t much more than a… well, watch. And that’s exactly what Yost told the league.
[Image credit: Ed Zurga/Getty Images]
MLB called Ned Yost to ensure he didn’t use his Apple Watch during games. He said, “When you’re away from your phone, all it is is a watch.”
— Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar) August 18, 2015
Via:
Apple Insider
Source:
MarketWatch, Andy McCullough (@McCulloughStar)
Tags: apple, applewatch, baseball, majorleaguebaseball, mlb, watch
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