T-Mobile cracking down on tethering abuse
T-Mobile today announced it will take action against a percentage of its customer base which has been found to be abusing the data network. According to CEO John Legere there are approximately 3,000 users out there taking advantage of the high speed data.
“I’m not in this business to play data cop, but we started this wireless revolution to change the industry for good and to fight for consumers. I won’t let a few thieves ruin things for anyone else. We’re going to lead from the front on this, just like we always do. Count on it!“
T-Mobile, as part of its unlimited plan, provides 7GB of high speed data to subscribers which can be used specifically for mobile hotspots and tethering. Once the threshold is met, the carrier will throttle speeds for the remainder of the bill cycle.
As it turns out, these crafty ne’er do wells, are employing workarounds to the tune of up to 2,000GB (2 terabytes) of data per month. Tricks employed by the hackers include hiding tethering usage, rooting phones, and writing code to obscure activity.
As T-Mobile sees it, these network abusers could potentially ruin the mobile experience for its regular customers. Choking the network is never fun, especially when there are people out there deliberately doing it.
T-Mobile says it will notify the group of troublesome tetherers about the violation of the terms of service. Those who fail to fall in line will be dropped down to entry-level T-Mobile plan.
The post T-Mobile cracking down on tethering abuse appeared first on AndroidGuys.
Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor to offer malware protection
Qualcomm on Monday announced its next-gen Snapdragon 820 mobile processor will offer anti-malware tools designed to keep users from the various threats that invariably pop up. Called “Smart Protect”, it’s billed as “real-time, on-device machine learning”, and it’s aimed at protecting users with enhanced security and privacy.
Qualcomm isn’t going to sit on the technology; it is working with OEMS and mobile security providers, too. The collaboration should lead to more secure apps and a generally safer mobile experience.
“With consumers storing more personal information on their devices, data leakage incidents and malware are on the rise. Snapdragon Smart Protect supports deep on-device monitoring for nearly instantaneous notifications of detected privacy violations and malicious activity while also providing great system performance and battery life“
The first devices to boast a Snapdragon 820 processor are expected in the first half of 2016. With that said, we’ll likely see said smartphones or tablets make their debut at CES in early January.
The post Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor to offer malware protection appeared first on AndroidGuys.
ISS astronaut will get to drive and ‘feel’ a rover on Earth
It’s going to be a little while before humanity sets foot on Mars, but in the meantime NASA has a bundle of robots exploring the planet for us. The data they’re collecting is valuable, but now researchers want to give their operators greater control. Specifically, they’re interested in force feedback — timely vibrations that would help astronauts carry out difficult tasks remotely. The European Space Agency (ESA) has developed a new rover with this in mind — the “Interact Centaur,” which has an onboard camera and two force-sensitive arms. ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen is headed to the International Space Station (ISS) on September 2nd and, five days later, he’ll be controlling one that’s back on Earth.
His mission is to guide the robot around ESA’s ESTEC technical centre in Noordwijk, the Netherlands, before locating an “operations task board” and successfully securing a metal pin. The component has a tight mechanical fit and a tolerance “about 150 micrometres,” or less than a sixth of a millimeter. With sight alone, this operation would be tricky, because it’s hard for drivers to tell how much force they’re applying and whether the robot is facing unexpected resistance. Rovers normally have rigid limbs, but on the Interact Centaur they’ll flex and send that information back to Mogensen so he can “feel” what’s happening.
The end goal is to develop a robot that can explore Mars and be controlled remotely by astronauts orbiting the surface. “Flying astronauts around the planet would overcome the problem of time delay, extending human intelligence and intuition to planetary exploration without the danger and expense of landing,” the ESA says. In addition, researchers believe the Interact Centaur could be used one day to install telescopes and prepare a human base on the far side of the moon. In this scenario, the operator would be able to control the robot from Earth — a place slightly more comfortable and convenient than the ISS.
Filed under:
Science
Via:
Gizmodo
Source:
ESA
Tags: ESA, europeanspaceagency, forcefeedback, hapticfeedback, interactcentaur, InternationalSpaceStation, ISS, robot, rover, space
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 uses machine learning to fight malware
The trouble with security software is that it’s always racing to catch up with new viruses and malware. They typically check against a database of known issues to protect you, which isn’t very useful for brand spanking new attacks. Qualcomm is trying to fix that with its Smart Protect technology, which uses machine learning to keep an eye out for potential security issues in real time. Instead of relying on a static list of threats to protect you, it’ll actually watch out for suspicious app behavior. Smart Protect will debut on Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 820 mobile processor, details of which it’s slowly leaking out. We already know the Snapdragon 820 will have faster graphics capabilities, for example, making it ideal for VR solutions. Naturally, Qualcomm is also offering an API for the new Smart Protect feature, allowing security software companies to take advantage of the new chip’s heightened awareness.
“Snapdragon Smart Protect is engineered to look at the actual behavior of device applications in real time and almost instantly detect and classify any application behavior that is considered suspicious or anomalous,” Qualcomm wrote in a blog post. “Suspicious applications are classified into severity levels of malware, ranging from more destructive malware applications, to spyware apps, to less threatening though annoying adware apps.”
By making Smart Protect a feature right on Qualcomm’s new hardware, it will also be able to keep your device secure without an internet connection. The big takeaway here: Malware protection on mobile devices is getting even more sophisticated than desktop security software, which, for the most part, still relies on downloading new antivirus and malware definitions to keep you safe.
Source:
Qualcomm (1), (2)
Tags: machinelearning, malware, mobilepostcross, Qualcomm, SmartProtect, Snapdragon820
Xbox One bundle packs 1TB hybrid drive and Elite pad for $499
Microsoft is launching a premium “Elite” controller for the Xbox One next month, so of course it’s also readying a new console bundle that includes the pad and a 1TB “Solid State Hybrid Drive” system. From November you’ll be able to get the set for $499 — pre-orders start today in the US and it’ll be exclusive to GameStop and Microsoft Stores for the first month. For comparison, the regular 1TB Xbox One bundle costs $399 — so with the $150 Elite controller thrown in, you’re getting at least $50 in savings. If you need a reminder, Microsoft’s new gamepad has an extra four bumpers on the back, “hair trigger locks” and the ability to customize the thumbsticks and D-pad with swappable parts.
If you already own an Xbox One, or think the Elite controller is just a little too expensive, Microsoft has another pad for you to consider. The “Special Edition Lunar White Wireless Controller” is the same as the regular gamepad, albeit with a white and gold color scheme and some improved grips on the reverse. It’s a GameStop exclusive in the US and will be coming out in late September for $64.99 — there’s no word just yet on an international release. Regardless, if you’ve been debating an Xbox One purchase, you now have a ton of bundles and accessories to consider. And with a bunch of exclusives coming down the pipeline, there’s little else Microsoft can do now to close the gap with Sony’s PS4.
Filed under:
Gaming, Microsoft
Source:
Xbox Wire
Tags: microsoft, xboxone, xboxonebundle, xboxoneelite, xboxoneelitebundle, xboxoneelitecontroller
Ashley Madison insists that real women use its affair service
That Gizmodo investigation of leaked data suggesting that most of the women on Ashley Madison’s affair-seeking service were fake? Completely bogus… if you ask Ashley Madison. It claims that there are plenty of real live women on the site — the ratio of paying men to active women (who get to use it for free) is reportedly 1.2 to 1, and women sent 2.8 million messages just in the past week. Gizmodo made “incorrect assumptions” about what some of the data fields meant, Ashley Madison says. Whether or not that’s true, you’ll want to keep the data in context. The service isn’t outlining the ratio of real to fake women, so it’s not clear whether real women are bountiful or needles in the proverbial haystack.
Also, Ashley Madison is adamant that it’s still growing despite the data breach. It says it racked up “hundreds of thousands” of new users this past week, including 87,596 women (see, they’re real! Honest!). Of course, it’s not certain how many of them are paying customers, or whether or not this rate will drop once the buzz surrounding the hack dies down. However, the stats do suggest that the breach was anything but a death knell for the online cheating hub.
[Image credit: Carl Court/Getty Images]
Filed under:
Internet
Via:
VentureBeat
Source:
Ashley Madison
Tags: affair, ashleymadison, avidlifemedia, cheating, dating, hack, internet, privacy, security
Motorola’s new Moto 360 Sport model breaks cover
We’ve already seen the upcoming Moto 360 sequel(s) quite a bit, but now another model has surfaced. Thanks to @upleaks, there’s the news that the next line of Motorola smartwatches will also include a sport option. Based on what appears to be a leaked press image/render, the Moto 360 Sport will arrive in three colors while still carrying the same circular face and dreaded “flat tire” look. The bands on the active model also don’t carry the same pins as the leaked 2015 unit, so we’ll be curious to see if you can swap out the straps with ease. If you’ll recall, Apple did something similar with its Watch by offering options for both active and fashion-minded folks. @upleaks also says that while the new Moto 360 will arrive in September, this newly outed Sport model won’t be available until November.
moto 360(2nd gen) and moto 360 Sport. pic.twitter.com/xKtUOiOqvP
— upleaks (@upleaks) August 31, 2015
Filed under:
Wearables
Via:
TalkAndroid
Source:
@upleaks (1), (2)
Tags: leak, moto360, moto360sport, motorola, smartwatch, wearable, wearables
LG sensor adds smarts to your ‘dumb’ home appliances
Sure, it’s easy to find connected home appliances, but what if you want to add a dash of intelligence to many of your existing appliances (not just one or two)? LG might come to your rescue before long. It’s launching a SmartThinQ Sensor which uses feedback like temperature and vibration to tell you what your devices are doing. It can tell when your washer has finished by waiting for the shaking to stop, for instance, or tell you if someone left the fridge door open while you were out. In some cases, you can even remotely control those older machines. There’s no word on when the sensor arrives, but it’ll be joined by the smartphone-controlled Smart Lightwave Oven and Smart Air Conditioner at the upcoming IFA trade show.
Filed under:
Household, Peripherals, LG
Via:
9to5Google
Source:
LG Newsroom
Tags: alljoyn, appliances, home, homeautomation, household, ifa, ifa2015, internetofthings, lg, sensor, smartairconditioner, smartlightwaveoven, smartthinq
5G, one wireless technology to rule them all?
If you look down the specification sheet of any modern day smartphone you will see that it supports a growing number of wireless technologies, 2G GSM, 3G, 4G LTE, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. The 2G, 3G and 4G technologies are about making phone calls and sending/receiving data via cell towers. Wi-Fi is primarily about data via a local access point, while Bluetooth is for very close proximity data transfer.
The progress from 2G to 3G, and from 3G to 4G LTE has been primarily about improvements to the standards related to cellular technology. However the move from 4G to 5G could be quite different.
The current plan is for the 5G standard to be ready by 2020. However, during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games we will see a showcase and demonstration of 5G technology. This means that 5G is coming and it is coming fast.
But, there is more to 5G than just super fast cellular tech. There is an active and open discussion going on to see if 5G can in fact become the de facto for all wireless standards. No more Wi-Fi, no more Bluetooth, no more 4G LTE, just 5G, one wireless technology to rule them all.
It sounds like a great idea and the ideal is noble. However is it the right approach? At the moment if you go into certain buildings or go underground (on a subway train) then you will lose your cellular connectivity. However these places may have other wireless networks, like Wi-Fi. Wouldn’t it be great if you could receive calls to your cell number while using Wi-Fi. Well in some countries you can. EE, the UK’s largest 4G network provider, has enabled Wi-Fi calling when using London’s underground (subway) system. Simply connect your phone to the underground WiFi network and use your phone as normal.
So clearly there is some convergence between Wi-Fi and 4G LTE. This can also be seen with normal data usage. I have a generous 4G data plan and I have Wi-Fi at home with unlimited data. However, I don’t always switch from 4G to Wi-Fi when I get home, sometimes I forget that I have switched off the Wi-Fi on my phone but I just carry on using 4G, it doesn’t matter to me.
People tend to buy the products that get the job done at the right price, regardless of their technical purity.
If the 5G standard supports cellar and Wi-Fi and rolls them up into a single standard, that could have its benefits. However, there are a couple of problems. The first is that different radio frequencies require different approaches. There is a big difference (in terms of the physics) between 5GHz Wi-Fi and 800MHz cellular. Is it really possible to build a system that can handle both effectively? Or will it be a mishmash of technology held together by gaffer tape?
Secondly, although there is a possible convergence at the high-speed, high-power end, is there such a convergence with the low-power, low-speed end? Probably not?
Different markets – different priorities
Each wireless technology can be quantified according to four different criteria: range, power, throughput and CPU usage. 4G LTE offers high-throughput with a long range. Wi-Fi offers high-throughput but with a short range. Bluetooth LE is for low-power scenarios, and so on.
I recently spoke with Richard Edgar, Director of Communications Technology for Imagination Technologies, about 5G. Imagination is helping shape the 5G standard and it recently joined the 5G Innovation Centre (5GIC) at the University of Surrey. As a Gold Member, Imagination has pledge to invest significant resources into 5GIC over the next five years, including both people and IP platforms. Its aim is to help 5GIC develop technologies that will be highly scalable and easily deployable.
But does that mean that Richard supports the idea of a unified 5G standard, no. Like me, Richard (and by extension Imagination) see that the high-end and the low-end of the wireless technology standards serve different purposes. The key growth area for wireless technology over the next 10 years probably won’t be 5G cellular technology, but rather the wireless tech of the Internet of Things (IoT).
For IoT the wireless solutions need to be designed for applications where a CR2032 cell battery needs to power a device for years (not weeks or days). The solutions need to be tailored for the unique opportunities that IoT presents. Even more importantly, the solutions need to be tailored for the consumer market and the existing protocols that are already well established in our homes and places of work.
For its part Imagination has a wireless platform called Ensigma. Like all of Imagination’s products, it is not an actual chip, but rather a design for a chip (or part of a chip) which can handle wireless technology. Just like its CPUs and GPU, chip makers can license the designs from it and incorporate them into actual silicon.
For example, the Ensigma Whisper Series5 RPU (Radio Programmable Unit) is a platform for low-power wireless standards such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and IEEE 802.15.4. It has been specifically designed for the low-power consumption markets such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearables. At the moment Ensigma supports over 30 communications standards, and as 5G evolves Imagination will update its designs accordingly.
The future
Even if 5G ends up being a giant standard that covers everything from low-power IoT devices to high-speed internet over cellular, my suspicion is that it will still in fact just be lots of standards all lumped under one label.
You have heard of MP3, right? Well technically its full name is MPEG-2 Audio Layer III. It was designed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) as part of its MPEG-1 standard and later extended in the MPEG-2 standard. MPEG-2 is the basis of DVD-Video and although it is still around it has been superseded by newer standards such as H.264 and H.265/HEVC, however MP3 still lives on, and it will still live on long after we stop encoding video with MPEG-2.
Consumers can be quite fickle and tend to completely ignore what standards committees decide.
The reason I mention MP3 is that it is part of a bigger standard, but yet it seems to have a life of its own, outside of that standard. For the technical among you, the same can be said of X.509. Back in my software engineering days I actually worked on an implementation of X.500, today nobody even talks about X.500, but X.509 (a part of the X.500 series which defines a standard for a public key infrastructure) is still used heavily today.
If 5G actually becomes a collection of standards then we may find that bits of it live on, while other bits die. Consumers can be quite fickle and tend to completely ignore what standards committees decide. People tend to buy the products that get the job done at the right price, regardless of their technical purity. The cellular radio parts of 5G will likely succeed, however I am not too sure about the rest!
Motorola Bounce has a 5.43-inch QHD display and a Snapdragon 810, but what is it?
Despite announcing its latest flagship, the Moto X Style (aka Moto X Pure) earlier this month, it seems Motorola isn’t slowing down anytime soon. Not only do rumors point to two new Verizon Droids in the near future, a new tweet from @upleaks has now outed the Motorola Bounce as well.
According to the well-known leaker, the Moto Bounce has a 5.43-inch QHD display and is powered by a Snapdragon 810 with 3GB RAM. Other specs include 32 or 64GB storage, a 21MP camera (likely the one from the Style), and a 3760 mAh battery. The phone will also reportedly offer a “shatterproof” design meaning it will have probably a MIL-STD rating. The rumor doesn’t mention it, but we wouldn’t be too shocked if it ends up with water/dust resistance as well, but at the very least it is probably splashproof.
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So what is the Bounce? While we really don’t know for sure at this stage, we wouldn’t be too shocked if the Motorola Bounce is just another name for the upcoming Droid Turbo 2. After all, the original Droid Turbo launched with specs that were more advanced than even the Moto X. The Droid Turbo eventually arrived to international markets under the name Moto Maxx, and so it stands to reason that the Bounce could be the international variant of the Turbo 2.
Obviously, this is all speculation at this point, so we wouldn’t jump to any conclusions just yet. Based on the very little we know about the Bounce, what do you think so far? Does a more compact flagship with a Snapdragon 810 appeal to you or are you perfectly happy with the larger 5.7-inch Moto X Style?
AIVAnet 