Even Snapchat falls victim to phishing attempts

Snapchat bragged about its eight billion daily video views on Monday, but over the weekend something happened that the ephemeral social app is probably less enthusiastic to admit: it’s just as susceptible to phishing attempts as anyone else. A post on the company’s blog says that last Friday someone impersonating the ghostly app’s CEO emailed the payroll department and requested and received information about some of its staff.

The blog stresses that unlike before, its servers were not breached in any way, nor was any user information compromised. So unless you were or are a current employee you shouldn’t have anything to worry about. And for that matter, Snapchat is providing two years of identity theft monitoring and insurance as a way of saying it’s sorry to the folks affected. There’s no word on exactly how many people’s identities were compromised.

To prevent social engineering from getting the best of employees in the future, Snapchat says it’s going to “redouble” its already “rigorous” training procedures over the coming weeks.

Source: Snapchat

iPhone 7 May Feature Flush Camera, Stereo Speakers and Thinner Lightning Port

Over the past six months there have been reports indicating that the iPhone 7 would include several new features, like a flush rear camera and stereo speakers. Tonight, Mac Otakara has issued a new report corroborating several of those rumors, including that the iPhone 7 could include a thinner lightning port, no 3.5mm headphone jack and more.

The site reports that the new phone will not have antenna bands across the rear and will have a flush rear camera, corroborating a MacRumors report in early February. The site notes that it’s likely the iPhone 7 will also come with stereo speakers, which was first predicted by Barclays analyst earlier this month.

Last September, KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo issued a report that the iPhone 7 would approach a thinness similar to that of the 6.1mm iPod touch. Mac Otakara’s report roughly agrees with that, noting that the iPhone 7 could be 1mm thinner than the 7.1mm iPhone 6s.

Mac Otakara also reiterated its earlier reports that the iPhone 7 would not include a headphone jack, instead using an all-in-one Lighting connector. However, the site claims that the Lightning connector enclosure may be thinner than normal; the Lightning port will still use the same cables.

A source on Chinese social media site Weibo claimed that the iPhone 7 would be waterproofed and use new composite materials for its shell last September. However, Mac Otakara says the iPhone 7 will include neither, instead using the same aluminum material and will be as water resistant as the iPhone 6s.

Thus far, reports have indicated that a rumored new dual-lens camera system would be included on the iPhone 7 Plus to differentiate it from the regular iPhone 7. Mac Otakara corroborates that the iPhone 7 will not have a dual-lens camera system, but notes that it doesn’t know if the feature will be included in the 7 Plus. Earlier today it was reported that Apple is considering introducing a new high-end iPhone 7 Plus with a dual-lens camera system called the iPhone Pro to better differentiate it from the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus.

Apple is expected to announce both the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus at an event in September. Unlike the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, which sourced A9 chips from both Samsung and TSMC, Apple will turn to TSMC exclusively for the iPhone 7’s A10 chip. Apple is also expected to announce the iPhone SE, a new 4-inch iPhone, this March alongside a new 9.7-inch iPad.

Related Roundup: iPhone 7
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Square Cash wants to help you stash cash – CNET

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Jason Cipriani/CNET

Square updated its Cash app on Monday, adding the ability to store money within a Cash Drawer. The digital savings account, of sorts, will keep money from being directly deposited in your checking account.

Why would you want to do that? Well, you can use the funds in your Square Cash Drawer as means to pay future bills, or easily send money to someone else without having to touch funds in your checking account.

To enable the new feature, make sure you’re using the latest version of the Cash app (iOS, Android).

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Screenshot by Jason Cipriani/CNET

• After updating the app, open it and tap on your profile picture in the top-left corner.
• Scroll down and find the Cash option under Funds; tap on it.
• Slide the switch to the On position, then enter a passcode if prompted.

With Cash Drawer enabled, any time someone sends money to your Cash account your Cash account will hold the funds. I had $1 sent to me, and after 30 it has yet to show up in my Cash Drawer. However, the alert did say it would take some time before the funds were in my Drawer.

When you have a balance in your Cash Drawer, those funds will be used first, followed by your linked debit card. You can view your balance by tapping on the Cash Drawer button at the top of the main screen, or by tapping on your profile icon, followed by Cash. (This is also the same place you will need to navigate to should you want to disable the feature.)

To withdraw your Cash balance, tap on the Cash Out button when viewing your Cash Drawer balance.

Square’s announcement notes the company plans on adding a button to add funds to a Cash account in the next few weeks.

How to share custom short URLs from your Android – CNET

Sharing links with friends on Android leaves you at the mercy of the app you’re using to shorten the ridiculously-long ones. Plus, you won’t be able to easily see how many times your link has been clicked. Unless, of course, you use an app like URL Shortener.

Instead of generating a random mix of letters, you can control the structure of your short URL with seven choices, including lower and upper case, pronounceable, numbers only, and custom. While smartphones can easily open a link, these choices will make it less cumbersome if your recipient wants to type the URL into a desktop browser. Additionally, you can add statistic tracking with several of the providers, giving you useful info about whether or not your links are being seen.

Step 1: Grab a copy of URL Shortener for your Android device.

Step 2: Open the app and head to Settings so you can choose your preferred URL provider (six choices), and whether you want to enable tracking. Unfortunately, you cannot set a default structure.

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URL Shortener main and settings menus.

Nicole Cozma/CNET

Step 3: When you’re ready to share a link you have two options:

• Copy the URL and paste it into the app, giving you access to structure choices, and allowing you to divert from your default URL shortening service.

Note: According to tips offered by Guiding Tech, Goo.gl does not support anything other than Standard structure, and tinyurl does not offer statistics.

• Share the link with the URL Shortener app (listed as Shorten URL in the menu). This option will not let you choose between URL structures, but will follow your default provider choice. You’ll be able to copy the URL quickly, or share it through another app.

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URL Shortener history menu.

Nicole Cozma/CNET

As an added bonus, the app will keep a history of all URLs you shorten.

What’s your preferred method of shortening URLs? Share your thoughts in the comments.

(Via Guiding Tech)

Brita Infinity Release Date, Price and Specs – CNET

The Brita Infinity Pitcher solves a problem you might not know you have.

Amazon

If you’ve ever owned a Brita water filter, you’ve probably spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to remember when you last replaced it. Brita has teamed up with Amazon to try to take this worry off your list of first-world problems.

On Monday, the online mega-retailer began selling the Brita Infinity, a Wi-Fi-connected water pitcher that will automatically order you new replacement filters through Amazon Dash Replenishment. Here’s how the $45 (about £32 or AU$63) pitcher works: You press the start button on the Infinity when you put a new filter into the pitcher. A built-in counter in the Infinity then tracks how much water passes through the pitcher. When the filter is almost spent (which takes about 40 gallons or 2 months), the Infinity will automatically order more filters from Amazon at about $6 each.

More about Dash

• Amazon says its Dash button clicks with customers
• The problem with Amazon Dash buttons
• Amazon Dash Buttons may be the future of grocery shopping

This latest partnership shows Amazon is eager to grow Dash Replenishment, the retailer’s program that lets connected products order more supplies from Amazon. There are more than a dozen manufacturers that have teamed up with Amazon to enable their products to do the ordering for you, including Brother printers that will order ink and Gmate Smart Blood Glucose Meter that will order testing supplies.

Large appliance manufacturers such as GE and Whirlpool are also getting in on the Dash game with dishwashers, washers and dryers that will replenish your supplies. Amazon has also doubled its efforts in producing its Dash buttons, those little branded, Internet-connected buttons you can press to automatically order specific products, such as Kraft Macaroni & Cheese or Tide detergent.

Wi-Fi connected water pitchers are low on my list of smart home must-haves. But as someone who has often disregarded the recommended changing schedule for a water filter, I can see the usefulness in this connectivity. It comes down to how much Brita users are willing to pay for the convenience of being forgetful.

Features

• Pitcher holds 8 cups (about 1.9 liters)
• BPA-free
• Reduces contaminants including lead, zinc, copper, mercury and cadmium

From the Forums — Which Galaxy S7 is best for the Gear VR?

Each phone you put in the Gear VR is great, but if you want the best possible experience you should choose wisely.

All Gear VR experiences are not created equal. Many of the newer, more capable apps don’t run on the Galaxy Note 4. Using a Galaxy S6 means you get about 45 minutes of play time before you’re scrambling for power. The Note 5 is the only current-generation Gear VR phone that doesn’t give you overheat warnings when connected to power for more than a few minutes while playing a game. It’s all the same Oculus-based system, but the details matter if you plan to be using that free Gear VR Samsung is offering for a limited time.

This means you have a choice to make, as we discovered in our forums. Do you go with the Samsung Galaxy S7, or the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge? There are advantages and disadvantages for both, and we’ve got them outlined for you right here.

Samsung built the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge so they are nearly identical inside. In fact, the only differences between these two phones are display and battery capacity. As it turns out, those are two of the most important things to consider when using the Samsung Gear VR.

Screen size in and of itself isn’t as important as pixel density. Remember, the Gear VR takes your display and holds each half up to a parabolic lense. Denser pixels means you’ll have a better image, which in turn means your visual experience will be better. If the visual experience is the most important thing to you, the Galaxy S7 will be the phone you want.

While both phones have the same functional resolution, the pixel density on the S7 is greater than that of the S7 edge. You won’t notice a difference in normal, day to day activities, but when held under that magnifying lens the difference will be clear.

Battery capacity in this instance has two meanings. First, and most obviously, the larger Galaxy S7 edge will last longer in the Gear VR. Larger battery means more time for watching Netflix and blowing up spaceships, both of which are quite a bit of fun on the Gear VR. The second detail, which is less obvious, is heat management.

Taxing the processor means a greater draw on the battery, which means more heat is generated in both places. Same goes for anyone charging their phone while playing, you’re creating more heat. The larger surface of the Galaxy S7 edge will dissipate heat faster, which means fewer opportunities for overheating when playing your games.

Choosing between these two phones for the Gear VR isn’t easy, but it’s all about what you expect to get out of the experience. If you want the best possible visuals, you want the Galaxy S7. If you plan to be spending a lot of time inside the Gear VR, the S7 edge is more likely to be the better overall experience. Either way, you’ll have everything you need to thoroughly enjoy yourself in VR.

Samsung Galaxy S7

• Galaxy S7 and S7 edge hands-on
• Galaxy S7 and S7 edge specs
• Here are all four Galaxy S7 colors
• Details on the Galaxy S7’s camera
• The SD card is back on the GS7
• Join our Galaxy S7 forums

AT&T Sprint T-Mobile Verizon

Samsung Gear VR

• Gear VR review
• Five Gear VR games that shouldn’t be missed
• Inside Samsung’s Gear VR web browser
• Gear VR vs. Google Cardboard
• Where to buy Gear VR

Amazon AT&T Best Buy Samsung

Weekly Poll Follwup: Galaxy S7 was the best phone announcement at Mobile World Congress 2016

In last week’s poll we asked which phone announcement from Mobile World Congress 2016 was your favorite. This year we got to see another amazing spread of brand new smartphones like the LG G5 and the new Sony Xperia X Series. There was plenty to be excited all over the place.

We gave you six options in last week’s poll: “Samsung Galaxy S7,” “LG G5,” “Sony Xperia X Performance,” “ZTE Blade V7,” “Alcatel Idol 4” and “Other.”

In first place with 51 percent of the overall vote, was the Samsung Galaxy S7. The LG G5 took second place with 28 percent of the vote. In third place, at only 9 percent, was a tie between the Sony Xperia X Performance and Other. The Alcatel Idol 4 managed to scrape into fourth place with 3 percent, and the ZTE Blade Z7 came in last with just 1 percent of the total vote.

So did your favorite win? Or was your favorite not on our list this week? Sound off in the comments, and let us know!

‘Fallout Shelter’ is becoming a bit more like ‘Fallout 4’

We still don’t have exact timing for the upcoming Fallout 4 add-on packs and survival mode, but perhaps a pretty sizable update to Fallout Shelter is an olive branch of sorts. For the most part, the patch brings a level of parity between the console and mobile game with the addition of armor and weapons crafting, a day-and-night cycle and Vault Dweller customization by way of a new room type (a barbershop). Oh, and because Bethesda doesn’t discriminate against non-four-legged creatures in terms of pet ownership, parrots are joining a few new cats and dogs in your underground utopia.

From the sounds of it, Bethesda is going to keep the mobile game updated on the regular too. The post on the publisher’s/developer’s website promises more to come following this one, which hits rather ambiguously sometime “later this week.”Here’s the thing, just how many people are still playing the game? Personally, I haven’t opened the app in at least three months, mainly because if I want to play Fallout I just turn on my PlayStation 4; I’m kind of a sucker for narrative. What about you?

Are you still playing ‘Fallout Shelter’ ?

Source: Bethesda

Take a peek at ‘Life is Strange’ studio’s next game, ‘Vampyr’

Gaze into the darkness long enough and a reluctant British vampire will gaze back at you. Sure, that’s not quite what Nietzsche said, but it’s the angle Dontnod is taking with its latest game, Vampyr. Set in London in 1918, Vampyr stars Jonathan Reid, a military doctor who specialized in blood research during World War I. He’s also a vampire, though he doesn’t enjoy killing; he dedicated his life to healing, after all. The Spanish Flu is ravaging Europe and as Reid stalks London’s foggy streets, he must balance his bloodlust with his still-intact moral compass.

The first screenshots for Vampyr are dark, both in mood and coloring. The cobblestone streets are unsanitary and dangerous, with shadowy figures lurking beneath yellow street lamps. It’s a huge departure for Dontond, the studio behind Life is Strange (a contemporary point-and-click adventure game about time-traveling high schoolers) and Remember Me (a sci-fi action title set in Neo-Paris in 2084).

Vampyr seems more on par with games like Assassin’s Creed or Devil May Cry — it includes a third-person, hand-to-hand combat system and superhuman parkour-inspired abilities. Players level up their fighting abilities and personality traits based on how much blood they harvest, heightening the tension between the protagonist’s desire to feed and do no harm.

The game’s overarching narrative, however, has Dontnod’s special spin: As Jonathan Reid carefully selects and kills his victims, their deaths alter the lives of related characters and the areas of town where their bodies are discovered.

“Be careful who you choose to hunt as they will be gone forever, and their death will impact in a meaningful way the world that surrounds you,” Dontnod says.

There’s no release date for Vampyr, but it’s in development for PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC.

Our very first screenshots of #Vampyr!https://t.co/Sojj1z945D
https://t.co/srCkHNYeNE

— DONTNOD_Ent (@DONTNOD_Ent) February 29, 2016

Google now sells Cardboard VR viewer directly through its online store

Google has a new Virtual Reality storefront in the Google Store, and one of the first viewers being shown off in the section is none other Google Cardboard.

Cardboard released more than a year ago and is nothing more than a do-it-yourself cardboard kit that requires a phone to power and display a VR experience. Since it debuted, many third parties have begun selling similar pre-cut kits. Google has never sold Cardboard directly through its store, but now it is offering a single Cardboard unit for $15, while a two-pack goes for $25.

Google also gives badges out to Cardboard-certified viewers to let consumers know those specific VR viewers work nicely with VR apps and games developed for its Google Cardboard headset, and the new Virtual Reality section in the Google Store showcases some of these headsets, such as Mattel’s new View-Master VR ($29.99) and the Goggle Tech C1 Glass ($14.99).

Google likely launched this VR section and its Cardboard through the section because its I/O developer conference is just a couple months away. Virtual reality is expected to be a big thing at the event. Plus, Google is rumoured to be developing a standalone VR headset that doesn’t require a smartphone for power or display purposes. None of this is confirmed as of yet however.One thing is for sure: Google’s new storefront tells us it is taking VR seriously.

Google