Tor accuses CloudFlare of blocking its anonymizing network

Not long ago, the content delivery provider CloudFlare claimed that a whopping 94 percent of the requests it gets from people using the Tor anonymizing network are malicious. It needs strict, Tor-specific security measures (such as demanding that visitors see CAPTCHAs) to protect its website customers against attacks, the company says. Well, the Tor team isn’t having any of it — it’s accusing CloudFlare of both mischaracterizing Tor users and blocking innocents in the name of overzealous security.

To begin with, the Tor group wants evidence. It’s asking CloudFlare how it got to that 94 percent figure, and doesn’t explain how its internet address reputation system (which gauges the trustworthiness of a given connection) works. The project also doesn’t buy CloudFlare’s argument that it’s being relatively gentle. Many Tor users get stuck in CAPTCHA loops or failures, and it’s very difficult to get off of the naughty list once you’re on it. If CloudFlare decides that a Tor connection’s internet address is shady, it frequently doesn’t lift this effective ban — many honest people are locked out, and it creates lots of false positives that give the Tor service a bad name.

At last check, the Tor project was waiting on answers before things went any further. However, CloudFlare has already said that a compromise is possible, such as a stricter cryptographic hashing algorithm (which would help CloudFlare whitelist Tor traffic) and asking users to perform a proof-of-work test to prove that they’re humans. The two outfits don’t have to be at odds, in other words — it may just be a case of finding common ground.

Source: CloudFlare, Tor Project

Samsung Gear VR now works with the web’s native VR format

Samsung’s Gear VR already has a web browser, but it’s now ready to browse the virtual reality experiences you find on the web, too. The company has introduced experimental support for WebVR that gives you full immersion when you visit supporting content using the headset. You’ll have to enable it yourself, and Samsung is quick to warn that things can break (WebVR isn’t a finished standard). Nonetheless, this is a big deal — it helps justify the Gear VR browser’s existence, and might give you one more reason to wear the device.

Via: Brendan Jones (Twitter)

Source: Mozilla

AC editors’ apps of the week: Attack the Light, Foodora, Miitomo and more

Our weekly app picks

It’s Appday Sunday and that means we’re back with more of our favorites to share. Every week we bring a handful of great apps to the table and share them with everyone. Sometimes they are new apps, sometimes old standards, but every time they are apps we love to use.

Give these a look and then take a minute to tell us all about the apps you are using and love so we can give them a try. We all find some of our favorites right in the comments on these posts!

Russell Holly — Steven Universe: Attack the Light

All he wants to do.

Is see them turn into.

A giant woman. A GIANT WOMAN.

I don’t usually pay a ton of attention to themed RPGs. They’re often pale imitations of proper RPGs so people can smile and remember the things about the show or movie being referenced in the game. Much in the same way that the show is much better than it looks, Attack the Light is a massive departure from that skinned RPG experience. It’s a totally unique RPG that puts you right in the middle of an adventure that could easily happen in several episodes of Steven Universe.

If you like Steven Universe, you should play this game. If you like RPGs, you should play theis game and then go watch Steven Universe. Either way you win, because both really are that good.

Buy: Steven Universe: Attack the Light ($.99)

Daniel Bader — Foodora – Finest Food Delivery

A shortage of app-based food delivery services there is not, but in a saturated market, some stand out more than others. Foodora, which entered the Canadian market in 2015 through its acquisition of courier startup, Hurrier, stands out with a slick and beautiful Android app that showcases the best food delivery options nearby.

Currently available in Toronto and Montreal in Canada, as well as Sydney and Melbourne in Australia, and several Western European cities, Foodora makes a concerted effort to partner with small, independent restaurants that benefit from the company’s robust supply chain of bike- and car-based delivery vehicles.

Despite the dominance of services like UberEats and Just-Eat, I keep returning to Foodora because its drivers are never late, the food is always hot, and delivery prices are reasonable.

Download: Foodora – Finest Food Delivery (Free)

Jen Karner — Wedding Escape

Marriage isn’t for everyone, and in this matching game you’ll be trying to escape your wedding. You’ll need to pick an avatar — to start you can flee as either the groomsman, or brideswoman. Each level is spent trying to outrun the folks who have it out for you, from priests, and bridesmaids to police officers. To make matches you’ll try for lines of 3, but unlike many matching games where you move pieces on the board, things are slightly trickier here. You’ll flip items to make matches, and try to clear enough tiles to make it to the next level.

This is a strategy based game, which you’ll realize when you have 6 moves to clear over 150 tiles from the board. Making bigger matches, and using power ups can make that much easier though. As you play you’ll unlock upgrades for play, as well as 60 unique characters to play as. This game is really fun, and quite addictive, but even after 4-6 hours of playing I’m still trying to get through level 9 in one piece. If you’re a fan of puzzle games, or matching games, this is one to check out.

Download: Wedding Escape (Free)

Phil Nickinson — Hootsuite

We were recently discussing on the podcast what we use to post to the Android Central Instagram account. It’s great that you can now use multiple accounts, but I still like to type on a keyboard more than I do on a phone. And so I’ve been using Hootsuite as a go-between. It’s part clever and part clunky. But once you get the workflow down, it makes it pretty easy to post pictures from your computer (which is where I do most of my photo editing anyway) to Instagram on a phone. The instructions are easy to follow, and the app does a nice job of walking you through things.

Download: Hootsuite (free, but with paid plans)

Ara Wagoner — RadarScope

April showers might bring May flowers…. but they also tend to bring April hail, flooding, and the errant tornado. While there’s probably some flimsy radar included in just about every weather app you’ll come across, for those who want to dig a little deeper into the squall line of supercells that are heading your way, there’s RadarScope. This is the radar app every meteorologist I know turns to when they’re not in the storm center (and even when they are, sometimes). This is not a cheap weather app, by any means, but if you live in tornado alley (yo!), somewhere that needs to be more weather-aware, or you’re just generally fascinated by mother nature and the hail she’s about to bring down on your car, this is worth the investment.

Should you need to quickly check the radar while you’re battening down the hatches around your property, or while you’re stopped at the traffic light (and I do mean stopped. DO NOT use this while moving), Radarscope’s recent 3.0 update added an Android Wear app. It’s ready to ride out the storm from your wrist, with controls to loop radar and switch between radar stations/types.

Download: RadarScope($9.99, in-app purchases)

Andrew Martonik — Fi Info

We’ve highlighted a few different apps to give you a peek behind the curtain of what’s going on network-wise with your Project Fi phone, and after using SignalCheck for a while I’ve come over to Fi Info. The app is simple, but keeps a great log of what exactly your Project Fi phone is doing — showing when it switches networks, what speed the network is and what Wi-Fi access points it hits.

Even better, Fi Info gives you quick settings to make your phone switch manually between Sprint and T-Mobile if it’s having a tough time figuring out which one to use, and has a couple of widgets that help facilitate the process. The app isn’t flashy, but it’s free and is now my app of choice for my Fi phones.

Download: Fi Info (Free)

Jerry Hildenbrand — Miitomo

I have no idea what I’m doing here. Russell told me “Dude you have to try the Miitomo app. You’ll hate it because you hate everything good!” Russell does that sort of thing, and I can’t help but listen. Anyhoo, I’ve been using it, and he’s right. I hate it. But that’s because he was also right when he said I hate everything good. I think.

Miitomo is like a little virtual world Tamagotchi pet thingy of some sorts. You don’t need to feed or pet your little dude or dudette, but you can do things like change clothes, visit friends and answer questions some Nintendo overlord beams into your screen. Your friends — you can find them from Twitter or Facebook — can see your answers and like or comment on them. Of course, you can also see your friends answers and do the same.

This game is not for me. I’m going to keep answering questions (I have no idea why) for a bit and see what else I can find out about it. Having said that, it seems that a whole lot of people do like Miitomo. I see the pictures getting shared (there’s an in-app camera you use to create poses and backgrounds to share your Wii avatar thingy) everywhere and watch people ohhing and ahhing over it.

You might be like me and hate it. Or you might not be like me and love it. It’s free (with in-app purchases to buy coins you can use to buy clothes), so there’s only one way to find out.

Download: Miitomo (Free with in-app purchases)

Blue Origin posts video of its rocket’s third flight

Another day, another suborbital spaceflight for Blue Origin’s BE-3 rocket booster. The New Shepard reached an altitude of 103km during its third flight yesterday, before the capsule came home via parachute and its engine landed while restarting at about 3,600 feet above the ground. We’re still waiting for those promised bigger rockets, but you can get your weekend’s video dose of rocketry.

Video from yesterday’s flight now live: https://t.co/vBvPYpGFrQ Great view of dramatic booster deceleration.

— Jeff Bezos (@JeffBezos) April 3, 2016

Source: Blue Origin (YouTube)

Music industry pushes for digital copyright law reform

Think the Digital Millennium Copyright Act is broken, leading to all kinds of abuse? So does the American music industry… just not for the same reasons. The RIAA and other groups have responded to a US Copyright Office request for comment on the DMCA by calling for broad reforms of the “harmful” and “obsolete” law. They argue that the takedown notice approach doesn’t work well given the sheer glut of pirated material — all it takes is a slightly different web address to make that bootleg song available once again. They also claim that safe harbor provisions are too kind, letting some sites profit from piracy that they know is taking place.

Instead, the music business wants a combination of law and technology that keeps unauthorized content offline. It’s asking for wider use of audio fingerprinting and similar methods to spot piracy beyond just one source. Ask for a takedown for one link and it’d theoretically apply to all links on that site. The groups also want to limit the scope of safe harbor provisions, stripping them from any site which is reasonably aware that piracy is taking place. Not surprisingly, the industry centers a lot of its wrath on Google. It’s still convinced that Google knowingly benefits from piracy, abusing safe harbor to avoid pulling every offending search result or YouTube video.

These are just comments, and the Copyright Office doesn’t have to act on them. As it is, many argue that the DMCA is broken in part because it makes takedowns too easy — Google backed a recent study showing that roughly 30 percent of the takedown requests it gets are dodgy. There’s an ongoing concern that the DMCA revolves around a backwards, guilty-until-proven-innocent approach that discourages fair use (such as short clips in podcasts) and enables censorship. There’s a real chance that copyright officials could decide that the DMCA is too strict, not that it isn’t strict enough.

Via: TorrentFreak

Source: RIAA, GPO (PDF)

Artificial skin grows hair and sweat glands

You’ve probably seen artificial skin before, but never has it been quite so… accurate. Japanese researchers have grown skin tissue that not only includes hair follicles, but all the glands that come with it — including oil and sweat glands. The trick was to take cells from mouse gums, turn them into stem cell-like forms that generate skin, and implant those into mice with immune system deficiencies (which lets the new skin grow unimpeded). The resulting skin was a little creepy — just look at the wart-like growth above — but it was healthy, behaved normally and made connections with natural tissue.

The technique is still a long, long way from practical uses. The scientists estimate that human trials will only start sometime within the next 10 years. If it pans out, though, the discovery could be a tremendous boon to the medical world. If you’re ever the victim of a serious burn or disease that destroys skin, you could get replacement tissue that’s virtually indistinguishable from the naturally grown variety.

Via: Popular Mechanics

Source: RIKEN, Science Advances

Wireless charging system for EVs is nearly as good as plugging in

Wireless charging for electric cars is already affordable, but it’s still pretty limited: it’s not the quickest option, and it’s not even on the radar if you’re driving large vehicles like trucks. Scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory are close to licking those problems once and for all, though. They’ve developed a 20-kilowatt wireless charging system that, at 90 percent efficiency, should be much more practical for topping up your car when pulling into the garage. The new design (which includes a mix of custom inversion, isolation transformers and electronics) is safe despite all the added electricity, since its magnetic fields drop off rapidly.

The current prototype is still a while away from becoming something you can buy, and you’d still want to plug in if you were in a hurry. However, the lab isn’t stopping here. Its next goal is to make a 50kW wireless charger that would be as powerful as the quick chargers you can find on the market. When that happens, it’ll both enable wireless charging for large vehicles and remove the last big reason to plug in. And there’s more — the researchers are also testing an on-the-move solution that would make it feasible for electric buses and other EVs to recharge while they’re still on the road.

Source: Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Snoopy and the Bat-Watch are just a few of the faces in the Gear S2 watch face roundup

A blend of features, and simplicity in this week’s watch face round up.

There are plenty of watch faces that are available on the Samsung Store to help you customize your experience. Trying to wade through all of them can be a serious pain though, especially when you can’t go scrolling through the store from your computer. To help you out we’ve grabbed 5 watch faces available for your Samsung Gear S2 that you may not have seen quite yet.

See if we’ve found your favorite watch face!

All in One

If you’re looking to be able to have as much information as possible at a glance, then the All in One is a great one to check out. You get access to tons of information in a concise format, that uses icons to help you understand everything at a glance. This face is just jam packed with the time, date, battery, pedometer, navigation, chance of rain, weather forecast, emails, calendar, settings and even music. Like we said, a ton of information is displayed here.

The time dominates the top of the screen in a 12-hour format, underneath that is the full date. The middle of the screen is a row of 5 icons that tell you your battery power, how many steps you’ve taken that day, how far you’ve traveled, and two different weather icons. Hugging the bottom of the screen are quick icons to get you to your email, calendar, settings, or music at a tap. You can also check on your activity for the day by double tapping the screen.

You can purchase the All in One Watchface on the Samsung Store for $2

Gear O’Clock

If you’re looking for a watch face that has plenty of information, with a more traditional look then the Gear O’Clock might be the face for you. This face gives you a 12 and 24 hour format, the day of week, day of the month, and what time it is in places all over the world. The great thing about this face is that everything blends together beautifully, without looking overloaded. You can even change the tone of the watch face from golden to silver by tapping on the screen.

The middle of the watch face is a global map, surrounded by several rings which each display different information. From the center outwards you’ll see a marking for seconds, then the 12 hour format, followed by the 24 hour format and two more rings with cities located around the world. At the bottom of the screen, along the 12 hour ring, you can see the day of week and day of the month. A small battery indicator is nestled between the 7 and 8 on this same ring. Over all of this are three hands to tell you the hour, minute and second of time.

You can pick up the Gear O’Clock Watch Face on the Samsung Store for $1.99

Bat-Watch

If you’re looking to add a bit of nerdy flair to your wrist, then the Bat-Watch is where we’ll recommend you to look. This face is fairly simple, while still giving you access to some pretty awesome features. The color scheme here is a combination of black, grey, and electric blue, helping you easily read the information on your screen.

The only design here is a grey bat, on a black background. There are electric blue markings for the seconds around the edge of the screen, and you get access to a pretty interesting array of information. By tapping on the screen you can cycle through several different bat logos to get the exact one you’re hoping for. Just under the logo is the full date, and at the very bottom of the screen is a pedometer. Above the logo is the time in a 12-hour format, with the battery and a heartrate monitor at the very top of the screen.

The Bat-Watch is available for $1.50 on the Samsung Store.

Gear S2 Chronos Digital Model

The Digital Model Chronos watch face gives you an eggshell background with a very clean display that still has plenty of information. The middle of the screen is dominated by a timestamp, available in 12 or 24 hour formats, and precise down the the second. The background can be changed by double tapping on the screen letting you rotate through almost a dozen different colors. You can also pick and choose which information is displayed on your screen, and in some cases, how it is displayed.

While you don’t get access to many choices, there are a few. You have the option of English, Spanish, Portugese, French, or German for the words on the watch face. You can also choose if the date is displayed, how the time is displayed, and even whether the clock lists off seconds as they tick on by. A colored bar will slowly creep around the edge of the screen to indicate the battery, and the date and days of the week are displayed along the edge as well.

The Gear S2 Chronos Digital Model is available on the Samsung Store for $.99

Snoopy on the Moon

Sometimes you just want a watch face that is sweet, and simple. If that’s case, then Snoopy is to the rescue — from the moon. This is a super simple watch face that really doesn’t have much information to be displayed in the least. What you do get is the time, your battery percentage, and several different animations that can be triggered by double tapping on the screen.

At the top of this watch face you’ll see the time, in a 12-hour digital format. Just under that is the current percentage of your battery. Under that is the star of this watch face, Snoopy himself. The animations are all pretty cute, from Snoopy walking across the screen, to Woodstock appearing in his own tiny helmet.

This Watch face is available for free on the Samsung Store.

Airbnb cracks down on illegal hotels in its home town

San Francisco regulates short-term rental services like Airbnb, but there’s still plenty of abuse. Locals can still point to property owners illegally offering short-term stays in homes they don’t live in, making an already dire housing situation even worse. However, Airbnb is now promising to do something about it. It’s investigating hosts in its home town with multiple listings, and promises to kick out “unwelcome commercial operators” that are running illegal hotels. The company reckons that 671 whole-home listings (from just 288 hosts), or about 7 percent of all San Francisco listings, are suspicious enough to warrant a closer look.

Airbnb says that it has already been purging some listings: it got rid of 218 of them between September 2015 and this January. However, it’s implementing a new San Francisco policy that allows only one whole-home listing on a short-term basis. Theoretically, that should stop bootleg hotels from getting off the ground and limit multi-property rentals to hosts that either have hotel licenses or are renting for longer stays (over 30 days).

The move is important for San Francisco, which has had a tough time enforcing its own law. With that said, though, there are still plenty of questions. Why didn’t Airbnb tighten its controls as soon as the rental law took effect in February 2015, for example? And, as SFGate notes, Airbnb’s data doesn’t say how many hosts illegally rented whole homes for more than 90 days per year — are they getting the boot, too? This move (as well as similar efforts in places like New York City) should still help residents take back some of their city, but there’s a concern that Airbnb hasn’t been as aggressive with purges as it could be.

Via: SFGate

Source: Airbnb

Tesla reportedly taps LG to make the Model 3’s giant display

Tesla has a lot of Model 3 pre-orders to fill, so how’s it going to get there? By asking some of the biggest companies in the world for help, that’s how. Reuters sources hear that Tesla is having LG Display make the 15-inch landscape touchscreen that dominates the Model 3’s cabin. There’s no official word on what prompted the switch from the unnamed supplier for the Model S and Model X (neither company has commented so far), but the move virtually guarantees that display tech won’t hold back Tesla’s dreams of mass-produced electric cars.

The news is big for LG, too. Most of its display business is tied up in mobile, PCs and TVs, where it’s hard to stand out. Seemingly everyone has a quad HD phone screen or a 4K TV set, after all. A partnertship with Tesla gives LG a better chance at diving into the world of automotive displays, where there’s less cutthroat competition and more profit.

Source: Reuters