Apple iPhone 7 dual camera and port features reveled in case leak video

The big reveal of Apple’s iPhone 7 isn’t expected until September but the rumour mill is already up to speed with leaks dribbling out early.

The latest is a leaked case that potentially reveals details of the iPhone 7.

The purported iPhone 7 case was obtained by Sonny Dickson and shared with Unbox Therapy which has uploaded a video detailing the unit. Surprisingly quite a few details have been attained from the case.

The first obvious thing is that the iPhone 7 appears to be the same size and shape as the iPhone 6S as the current model fits in the case comfortably. The power and volume rocker buttons appear to be in the same place.

Unbox Therapy

Rather more telling is the space cut out for the camera. As you can see from the image above the case has a lot more space for a camera than the current model needs. As such rumours of a dual camera have some weight added to them. Huawei has revealed its next P9 will have dual cameras suggesting that’s the way handsets are going.

Also claimed by the video is that the bottom of the case has space for a speaker, microphone and Lightning port but no headphone jack. While the image shows room for a headphone jack, this rumour of a headphone Lightning only connection does keep cropping up.

Expect to hear plenty more leading up to Apple’s expected iPhone 7 announcement in September.

READ: Apple iPhone 7: What’s the story so far?

Unbox Therapy

Now you can ask Amazon’s Echo about your Fitbit stats

It was only a matter of time until someone integrated a fitness gadget with Amazon’s Echo — we should have guessed that Fitbit would be first. Starting today, you’ll be able to ask any of Amazon’s speakers about your Fitbit performance with a new Alexa skill. Once enabled, you can say “Alexa, ask Fitbit how I’m doing today” for a basic overview of your activity. But even more intriguing, you can ask Alexa things like how you’ve slept, or how much activity you’ve tracked, for any of the previous seven days.

Sure, it’s pretty easy just to glance down at your Fitbit device, but the ability to ask about even more complex stats makes this a pretty compelling Alexa skill. Amazon’s virtual assistant will even take the role of a coach with encouraging and inspirational comments, all of which will take the time of the day into account. Asking about your step count in the morning, for example, might get Alexa to say “you’ve got to start somewhere.”

“As we look at how this integration could evolve in the future, there is an endless world of possibilities from fitness coaching and nutrition tips, to guidance before bedtime to help you get a more restful night’s sleep,” Tim Roberts, executive vice president of interactive at Fitbit, said in a statement.

I haven’t had a chance to try out Fitbit’s Alexa skill yet, but on paper it seems like the perfect use of Echo’s voice smarts. It’s much easier to ask about something like the amount of calories you burned yesterday and get a quick reply, rather than open your phone, find the Fitbit app, and drill down to the appropriate screen. It’s even more useful than the voice-powered food and activity logging that Fitbit brought to Microsoft’s Cortana last year.

These workout shorts made me feel like I was running underwater

It’s been almost two days since I worked out while wearing Physiclo’s new resistance shorts, and my legs are still sore. It’s not like I worked out all that hard either. Physiclo co-founder and COO) Keeth Smart guided me through a series of exercises including jumping jacks, squats, knee raises and some stair-climbs. Then we jogged for maybe two minutes; the whole workout only took 10 minutes total. I’m not as fit as an Olympic athlete — I forget to mention that Smart won a silver medal for fencing in the 2008 Olympics — but I’m not a complete couch potato either. What the heck did these shorts do to me?

The answer is that they’ve been built specifically to make all lower-body workouts harder so that you get more out of any given workout. On the surface, they’re similar to standard compression shorts — but they also have built-in elastic resistance bands and panels that challenge your leg muscles at every turn. Each set of leg muscles is targeted by specific bands or panels, so no matter which way your legs move, they’re being challenged. It’s the same theory behind the leg weights that some wear while training; anything that makes the workout harder means you’ll burn more calories, raise your heart rate and generally get more out of the work you do.

According to Physiclo’s testing, working out with their compression shorts leads to 23 percent more muscle activity and a 14 percent increase in calories burned. I can’t speak to those specific numbers, but there’s no doubt in my mind that I was working a lot harder than I normally would. Smart likened the experience to working out in a pool, with the water providing natural resistance, and it’s a pretty apt comparison. I noticed it the most when finishing up a set of exercises — as my muscles naturally started to feel fatigued, the shorts made finishing up what I was doing even harder.

That said, it’s also worth noting that most of the exercises I was doing aren’t ones I typically do when working out, so my muscles were going to feel extra-sore anyway. Most of my workouts are strictly runs, so this was a bit of a different beast. I’m looking forward to wearing the shorts and doing one of my more standard workouts to see how that goes. Smart cautioned me to take it slow and not try to do the same routine I otherwise would — if you usually run five miles, he told me, run three instead and see how you feel.

At $100, Phyisclo’s shorts (they also come in full-lenght tights for both men and women) aren’t cheap and thus will probably be looked at mainly from people who are a bit more serious about their exercise routines than I am. But Smart told me his team spent a lot of time tweaking the amount of resistance in the shorts so that they appeal to a wide range of athletes, and I’m curious to try them and see if I can get more out of my running routine.

Physiclo’s products aren’t really targeted at someone like me, who runs three times a week to try and be a bit healthier and more active. They’re for more serious training, and they’re priced accordingly at $100. Making them too strong would have meant that I could barely have used them at all, and Physiclo doesn’t want to limit its market appeal. If you do a lot of working out that’s focused on your lower body and are looking for a new tool to push yourself a bit further (and have the cash to spare), Physiclo’s products are worth a look.

A dangerous piece of PC ransomware is now impossible to crack

What do developers do after discovering a software vulnerability? Why, patch it, of course. Ironically, criminal have learned that lesson too, as one gang has updated the notorious TeslaCrypt ransomware with new features that are impossible to “crack,” according to Cisco’s Talos security arm. That means user infected with the latest version (3.01) of the malware can no longer use white hat-engineered software to get their files back. Until someone finds a new solution — and that seems unlikely — victims will have to pay.

Companies like Kaspersky and Cisco’s Talos have reverse-engineered various pieces of ransomware, helping corporate clients and anyone else rescue files without paying. The security community has also developed better detection and distribution disruption methods for the scourge. According to Talos, “this has lead adversaries to iterating and improving upon the previous release of TeslaCrypt.”

We can not say it loud and often enough, ransomware has become the black plague of the internet, spread by highly sophisticated exploit kits and countless spam campaigns.

Previously, it stored the private key needed to unlock files on your own machine. However, after generating the key locally, TeslaCrypt 3.01 transfers it to the bad guy’s server and deletes it from your PC. As a result, “the private key never has to leave the [attacker’s] server and the ransomware uses a different key for each victim,” according to Talos. With the 256-bit key nowhere to be found and very hard to brute force, the only way you can get your files is to pay.

“We can not say it loud and often enough, ransomware has become the black plague of the internet, spread by highly sophisticated exploit kits and countless spam campaigns,” Talos says. Attackers are going after bigger targets that can afford to pay more, with potentially catastrophic consequences, as we saw at a Hollywood hospital. The best defense is to back up your files, but even that might not help. The FBI recently said that “in a new scheme, cyber criminals attempt to infect whole networks with ransomware and use persistent access to locate and delete network backups.”

Via: PC World

Source: Cisco Talos

Sky is becoming a virtual reality broadcaster

Sky has known for some time that virtual reality has a huge part to play in the future of broadcasting. Since 2013, it’s been investing in VR production company Jaunt, and last year, Sky News released its first 360-degree video report. Today, Sky’s announced that it’s no longer just experimenting with the technology, and it’s committed to creating a broad range of VR content in the realms of sport, news, movies and other entertainment.

This will be the mission of Sky VR Studio, a new in-house production team dedicated to virtual reality experiences. Its first project will debut tomorrow: two movies shot at recent pre-season Formula 1 testing in Barcelona. These will be available as 360-degree videos on Facebook, as well as distributed through Oculus’ platform for Rift and Gear VR headsets. Later in the year, Sky will also launch its own VR app to host this kind of content.

During 2016, Sky says it will release more than 20 VR experiences. These will cover sports such as heavyweight boxing and the Tour de France, as well as “major cultural events,” among other news, arts and entertainment content. Sky is going through period of reinvention currently. In addition to today’s VR push, the pay-TV provider recently launched its next-generation Sky Q service, which embraces our growing preference for on-demand viewing. The new family of hardware also sets the stage for a move into 4K broadcasting, which is set to happen this summer, according to the latest from Sky.

Source: Sky

US to ban hoverboard imports following Segway complaint

Feds might seize even more “hoverboards” now that the US International Trade Commission has banned most of them from being imported into the country. The ITC didn’t issue the order because they’re prone to exploding and catching fire — it did so because of a patent complaint filed by Segway. Under the general exclusion order, any “personal transporter” that infringes upon Patent No. 8830048 (one of Segway’s many, many patents) isn’t allowed to enter the US.

The patent’s abstract reads:

An apparatus controller for prompting a rider to be positioned on a vehicle in such a manner as to reduce lateral instability due to lateral acceleration of the vehicle. The apparatus has an input for receiving specification from the rider of a desired direction of travel, and indicating means for reflecting to the rider a propitious instantaneous body orientation to enhance stability in the face of lateral acceleration. The indicating may include a handlebar that is pivotable with respect to the vehicle and that is driven in response to vehicle turning.

In the ITC’s notice, it says Segway named 13 specific companies, which it believes infringe upon its intellectual property, in the complaint it submitted in 2014. They include Robstep Robot., Shenzhen INMOTION Technologies, Tech in the City, Freego USA, UPTECH Robotics Technology, Beijing Universal Pioneering Technology, FreeGo, EcoBoomer and Roboscooters.com. Most of these entities import self-balancing scooters from China. Segway also included Chinese company Ninebot in the list, but the Tianjin-based corporation ended up buying Segway in 2015.

Ars Technica notes that the president still has to approve the ITC’s order within 60 days, though it doesn’t sound like he has a reason to oppose it. That said, folks who hate the scooters might want to hold off on celebrating — it’ll likely take time to enforce the ban if the president approves it.

Via: Gizmodo

Source: Federal Register

‘ProtonMail’ Email App for iOS Launches With End-to-End Encryption

Swiss software developer and civil liberties outfit Proton Technologies saw its encrypted email app ProtonMail hit the App Store today.

The iOS app is a front end for the company’s popular free worldwide end-to-end encrypted email service, built on the back of over half a million dollars raised in a 2014 crowdfunding campaign.

ProtonMail invisibly integrates PGP encryption into a modern user interface and operates on the service’s “zero access” policy, meaning all messages are stored in encrypted format so that not even ProtonMail has access to their contents.

Illustrated example of end-to-end encryption (Image: ProtonMail)
After creating a free email account, users can send and receive encrypted emails automatically, set timers for messages to self-destruct after sending, organize emails using swipe gestures and labels, and also send password-protected encrypted emails to non-ProtonMail email addresses.

ProtonMail’s encryption service is open source and hosted entirely in Switzerland, under the protection of some of the world’s strongest privacy laws.

Last year, the Swiss Parliament passed a new domestic surveillance law that increased the country’s state surveillance capabilities and curtailed privacy rights. However, ProtonMail has concluded that the law does not negatively impact the company’s secure email service.

Boxes of signatures being delivered to the Swiss government in Bern (Image: ProtonMail)
Despite that analysis, ProtonMail joined other civil liberty groups to mount a challenge against the new law, since according to Switzerland’s democratic system, any law can be challenged by collecting 50,000 signatures within a period of three months after its passage.

Those efforts resulted in 70,000 signatures being delivered to the Swiss parliament in January. This means that at the next election, the Swiss surveillance law will be put to a public vote by the entire country.

ProtonMail was founded in 2013 by MIT engineers and CERN scientists inspired by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s revelations of government mass surveillance programs.

ProtonMail is a free download for iPad and iPhone. [Direct Link]

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tag: Encryption
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Tim Cook Featured on Cover of TIME Magazine in New Apple-FBI Interview

Apple CEO Tim Cook will be featured on the cover of the March 28th edition of TIME Magazine in relation to the ongoing Apple-FBI debate over unlocking an iPhone belonging to deceased San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook.

The print edition includes a lengthy interview with Cook, who talked mostly about widely known background details pertaining to the case, just days before Apple and the FBI are set to appear in a U.S. court on Tuesday, March 22.

Cook insists that Apple’s refusal to create a modified, less-secure version of iOS, enabling the FBI to unlock Farook’s passcode-protected iPhone using brute force, was a “labored decision” based on lengthy internal discussions.

“We had long discussions about that internally, when they asked us,” Cook says. “Lots of people were involved. It wasn’t just me sitting in a room somewhere deciding that way, it was a labored decision. We thought about all the things you would think we would think about.”

Cook said that he found out about the FBI-backed court order demanding Apple help federal investigators access data on the shooter’s iPhone through the press, and he admitted to being “deeply offended” by the government agency “talking about or lying about [Apple’s] intentions.”

“Do I like their tactics?” Cook says. “No, I don’t. I’m seeing the government apparatus in a way I’ve never seen it before. Do I like finding out from the press about it? No, I don’t think it’s professional. Do I like them talking about or lying about our intentions? No. I’m offended by it. Deeply offended by it.”

Cook likened Apple’s stance to “freedom of speech” in the U.S., which is protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution.

“When I think of civil liberties, I think of the founding principles of this country,” Cook says. “The freedoms that are in the First Amendment, but also the fundamental right to privacy. And the way that we simply see this is, if this All Writs Act can be used to force us to do something that would make millions of people vulnerable, then you can begin to ask yourself, If that can happen, what else can happen? In the next Senate you might say, Well, maybe it should be a surveillance OS. Maybe law enforcement would like the ability to turn on the camera on your Mac.” […]

Except that it protects terrorists as well as good guys. “We get that,” Cook says. “But you don’t take away the good for that sliver of bad. We’ve never been about that as a country. We make that decision every day, right? There are some times that freedom of speech, we might cringe a little when we hear that person saying this and wish they wouldn’t. This, to us, is like that. It’s at the core of who we are as a country.”

While the FBI has argued that it only wants access to a single iPhone, Cook stressed that “it’s not about one phone” and that weakening encryption could set a dangerous legal precedent — which the FBI itself has partially acknowledged.

“It’s very much about the future. You have a guy in Manhattan saying, I’ve got 175 phones that I want to take through this process.” (The guy in question being New York County district attorney Cyrus Vance, who did in fact say that.)

The full-length interview can be read on TIME’s website and in the March 28 print issue.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Tags: Tim Cook, Apple-FBI
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HTC shares where you can try and buy the Vive on UK high streets

HTC has shared where consumers will be able to pick up the Vive virtual reality headset in the UK. The VR system is ready for pre-order at a number of participating high street retailers. The list of retailers include the likes of Dixons Carphone, Overclockers UK and Scan Computers.

Arriving in May, you’ll be able to pop into your nearest participating store to put your name down for a unit from today, as well as take advantage of hands-on demo time. Here’s the full list of retailers:

• Currys PC World, Leeds (Birstall)
• Currys PC World, Reading
• Currys PC World, Tottenham Court Road
• Overclockers UK, Newcastle-under-Lyme
• Scan Computers International Ltd, Bolton

Each of the aforementioned stores will have a demonstration station ready to go for the public to interact with. Priced at £689 in the UK, it’s an expensive investment, but well worth it if you’re looking to take your media consumption to the next level. Be sure to check out the HTC website for more details surrounding availability in the UK.

Mickey Mouse is coming to Crossy Road

Disney and Pixar characters are about to invade Crossy Road. Hipster Whale has announced that it is teaming up with Disney to bring over 100 characters to the arcade game, starting with Mickey Mouse.

The partnership was announced at this year’s Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. There’s no exact date as to when the new characters will be available, but we should get additional details soon.

What do you guys make of Disney characters in Crossy Road?