Facebook can’t stop lawsuit over its facial recognition software
Facebook will have to battle it out in court over a lawsuit that claims the social network’s facial recognition software violates an Illinois privacy act. This week, a San Fransisco federal judge denied Facebook’s motion to dismiss the case. The suit alleges that Facebook’s facial recognition and photo-tagging system violates Illinois’ 2008 Biometric Information Privacy Act, which states that companies must receive explicit consent to collect identifiers including fingerprints and, in this case, faceprints.
Facebook outlines its photo-tagging process in its terms of service and users can opt out of it. The lawsuit will decide whether this measure qualifies as explicit consent under the privacy act.
“The Court accepts as true plaintiffs’ allegations that Facebook’s face recognition technology involves a scan of face geometry that was done without plaintiffs’ consent,” U.S. District Judge James Donato wrote in his ruling.
Facebook faced similar privacy concerns in Europe and Canada, and it stopped using the facial-recognition tech in those regions.
Source: CNBC
Manus VR gloves add full-arm tracking to the HTC Vive
The Manus VR gloves were already impressive when we got our hands in them at the Game Developers Conference, but their latest feature promises an even more immersive experience. Using the HTC Vive and its motion controllers, the Manus system can track players’ entire arms, bending elbows and all. The controllers strap onto players’ wrists for full-arm positional tracking and the gloves allow them to articulate their fingers in the VR space.
Many VR experiences use the “floating hands” technique, which is effective but not exactly natural-looking (or -feeling). Arm tracking allows developers to take advantage of common movements and accessories, such as blocking a punch or wearing a Pip-Boy — or an Apple Watch, if you’re into more realistic experiences. The Manus team is still experimenting with full-arm tracking on the Vive, but it will be featured in the gloves’ SDK that’s due to launch in June.
Watch the announcement of the next ‘Battlefield’ here (Update)
EA and DICE are ready to show the world the next Battlefield game, and today’s the day. Watch the live reveal right here starting at 4PM EDT / 1PM PDT. Little is known about the setting or timeframe of the new game, though rumors abound. Get the confirmation for yourself in the livestream embedded below.
Update: The new game is called Battlefield 1 and it takes place during the first World War. Read our story about the setting, release date and platforms right here. Re-watch the reveal starting at 6:10:33 in the following video.
The next ‘Battlefield’ drops you in WWI, launches on October 21st
EA and developer Dice today revealed the next major entry in the venerable warfare series Battlefield. Just as the rumor mill believed, the game will be set in World War I — and the new game, appropriately, is titled Battlefield 1. “We chose the name because we’re going back to the true dawn of all out warfare,” lead game designer Daniel Berlin said at a private event near San Francisco for press and fans, “and this is the genesis of what modern warfare is today.” The game will be out on Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC starting on October 21st, and an open beta will take place later this year.
This marks the first time the Battlefield series will dive into WWI, and judging from the trailer shown off, the game takes full advantage of next-gen console power to make both combat and environments bigger, more varied and (naturally) more violent. Some rumors made it sound as if the game would present an alternate-reality version of WWI, but it looks as if Battlefield 1 is reasonably faithful to its source material. It was a time when historical warfare tactics and weapons collided with a totally new technology, and as such the game naturally presents a variety of different combat colliding all at once.
“This was probably the most technically divergent war ever,” Berlin said. “You have cavalry fighting side by side with tanks, biplanes flying above you, hellfights in muddy trenches where hand to hand becomes just as viable as using firearms.” Indeed, the trailer showed off all of that and more — there’s plenty of firearm combat, but also some incredibly violent up-close action, plenty of tanks around the European countryside, some pretty amazing-looking plane dogfights and horseback battles in the deserts of Arabia. And there’s a new melee system in the game to bring the era’s interplay between hand-to-hand and weapons combat to life properly.
The variety of combat styles, vehicles and landscapes all were quite impressively rendered — it’s hard to say what actually playing this game will be like just yet, but there’s no doubt that the footage shown today both gorgeous and terrifying in its realism. The trailer notes that we were watching “pre-alpha” gameplay, so obviously things can change a lot between now and launch, but if Dice manages to get the whole game looking as good as the trailer did, it’ll likely be worth a look just for the graphics alone.
As is always the case with the Battlefield series, multiplayer is the main attraction here. This time out, though, the Dice team says that vast scale and scope of the game means that trying to go “lone wolf” style is going to be a lot harder. “We wanted teamplay to be the recipe for victory,” Berlin said. “It’s important to feel like you’re a critical asset to your team but also that your team is an asset to you.”
Battlefield 1 will also include a single-player campaign that’ll likely be looked at as an afterthought by the franchise’s fanbase — it wasn’t even mentioned until 45 minutes through the hour-long presentation. There weren’t many details revealed just yet, but Berlin did say that the campaign would “push more variety, add more vehicle gameplay, and… introduce larger environments and more player chocie in those large environments.”
We should learn more on both the campaign and multiplayer fronts by this June — the game will be playable at the EA Play event taking place at E3. If you’re already sold, you can pre-order the standard, “early enlister” deluxe edition and the incredibly expensive collector’s edition now on Amazon.
How Armenian gangsters blew up the fingerprint-password debate
Paytsar Bkhchadzhyan is a woman with a colorful past and a bummer of a present.
She arrived this week in news stories with a string of criminal convictions, and gained notoriety for pleading “no contest” to felony identity theft early this year. Her iPhone was seized from her boyfriend’s house, one Sevak Mesrobian, who is a member of Los Angeles based gang Armenian Power.
Her fingerprint then began its long journey to giving civil liberties fetishists a new storyboard for their “bad touch” role-play scenes.
“Bad Touch” ID
Much ado has been made over a Los Angeles judge’s February decision to grant a search warrant allowing authorities to take Bkhchadzhyan’s fingerprint and use it to unlock her iPhone. Surfacing in the news this past week with drama and fanfare, it’s an unprecedented revelation that has divided legal experts, and given our collective Big Brother paranoia and infosec hysteria a shot in the arm that we really didn’t need.
The decision came in record time, probably thanks to Touch ID’s own timeout function giving the authorities a helpful spike of urgency to their request. Within 45 minutes of Bkhchadzhyan’s arrest for identity theft last February, the warrant to search her phone was granted, and her fingerprint was taken and used to bypass the biometric password for her iPhone’s Touch ID.
Things would have been different had she been using a regular password or passcode, which is protected by the 5th Amendment’s safeguards for self-incrimination.
The federal judge weighing in on the search warrant, U.S. Magistrate Judge Alicia Rosenberg, didn’t consider a fingerprint the same as a password. Rosenberg’s decision was preceded by a Virginia Circuit Court judge in October 2014, where it was a ruled that giving biometric data is not the same as divulging knowledge.
Some argue that what happened in LA violates the woman’s 5th amendment rights. But the issue is far from being decided. In the meantime, some authorities are quick to exploit the law’s failure to keep pace with technological advances like Touch ID and the public’s perception of what a password really is.
The jury is out
As we learned in the San Bernadino iPhone case, phones are just about the most valuable real estate law enforcement can get its hands on. We also learned that the whole situation of laws and phones and threats and passwords is messy and baffling.
But think about it this way: Our laws around tech, privacy, and the needs/wants of authorities are a bit like an old building. One that has had every inch of usable space utilized, with no overall plan for expansion. But in the era of cyber, it must remodel. The only thing really guiding it is the structural bits that can’t be moved (like the 5th Amendment). To expedite growth into the next room, cops are just punching through walls. And judges, like the tech companies whose inventions are facilitating this explosive growth, are really not interested in signing off on anyone’s expansion plans.
Though, I think it’s safe to assume that Apple didn’t consider that its innovation was going to give law enforcement a pass to jump the search and seizure queue.
In this case, it all ended up boiling down to the relative value of the password protections afforded ordinary citizens versus the worth of a gangster’s girlfriend. And that’s where things start to get really interesting.
It turns out that Paytsar Bkhchadzhyan is a link worth clicking on.
If only she’d used a PIN code
If you think there’s irony in a woman getting sent up the river for identity theft ending up center stage in the biggest fight over passwords and privacy ever, just wait — there’s more. Authorities were actually after the treasure trove of information in Bkhchadzhyan’s phone, which most likely included her boyfriend’s activities in a gang called Armenian Power.
As described in an elegant piece by Halyley Fox for LA Weekly, Armenian Power members run with names like Thick Neck, Guilty, Stomper, Gunner, Lucky, Menace and Casper (and at least one lady gangster named Sugar). They earn these names from shootouts involving AK-47s on the streets of LA, as well as their occupations. Their business practices include kidnappings and protection rackets, but primarily involve exploiting security holes to perform identity theft, bank fraud, and card skimming through hardware hacking.
To that effect, the racket that helped land an Armenian Power leader in prison in 2014 was what the FBI called, “a sophisticated debit card skimming operation” involving “the installation and use of skimmers to steal thousands of customers’ debit card numbers and PIN codes.” Gangsters went into stores and swapped out point of sale keypads while checkout clerks were distracted, then returned to swap them again a week later, loaded with customers’ credit and debit card data.
Bkhchadzhyan’s boyfriend is currently in prison. But since news reports link the iPhone fingerprint warrant with an ongoing investigation, he may not be the droid they’re looking for. What comes to mind here is the Armenian Power’s well-documented willingness to fight for Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad — self-described “gangbanging for Syria” and for their homies back in SoCal. Bringing that war home would be very bad, indeed.
At any rate these are the kind of guys, who, unlike the genteel security team members at Apple, would be more inclined to part your hair for you about eight inches too low than debate theories about password security use cases.
Now that American judges are treating Armenian gangsters like country mice in the big city, some of the more extreme hypotheticals about cops exploiting Touch ID have come home to roost.
And in light of the all implications here, paranoid jokes about fingerprint passwords posing a serious risk to outlying body parts under extenuating circumstances don’t seem so far fetched after all.
Images: Petrovich9/Getty (Lead); Bryan Thomas/Getty Images (No entry); Magdalena Mayo/PA Wire (ATM)
MacRumors Giveaway: Win a Limited Edition ‘Lost Time’ UE Boom 2 Speaker From Ultimate Ears
For today’s giveaway, we’ve teamed up with Ultimate Ears to give MacRumors readers a chance to win a limited edition UE Boom 2 Bluetooth speaker. Called “Lost Time,” the speaker has a colorful, abstract design that was created by Australian artist Reka.
Available for $199.99, the same price as all of the UE Boom 2 speakers, the Lost Time version is available in limited quantities. Ultimate Ears is also selling “Rabbit Eye Movement” and “Fresh Cut” limited edition speakers with unique designs.
Aside from its look, the Lost Time UE Boom 2 is the same as other UE Boom 2 speakers, offering high-quality sound in a portable package. The UE Boom 2 line is waterproof with an IPX7 rating, meaning it can be taken to the beach, the pool, or used in the shower, and it’s also shockproof so it’ll survive drops up to five feet. The built-in battery will last for up to 15 hours.
We reviewed the UE Boom 2 back in November and found that it puts out a lot of sound for its compact, size, which is equivalent to a water bottle. The UE Boom 2 also benefits from the UE Boom app, allowing multiple speakers to be linked together.
We’re giving away one Lost Time UE Boom 2 to a lucky MacRumors reader. To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winner and send the prize.
You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page. Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years of age or older are eligible to enter.
a Rafflecopter giveawayThe contest will run from today (May 6) at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time through 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time on May 13. The winner will be chosen randomly on May 13 and will be contacted by email. The winner has 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address before a new winner is chosen.
Tags: giveaway, Ultimate Ears
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New Rumor Suggests iPhone 7 Won’t Include Smart Connector After All
A Smart Connector has been one of the features rumored for the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, but a new report from Japanese site Mac Otakara suggests Apple has decided not to include a Smart Connector on the upcoming devices.
The Smart Connector, first introduced with the iPad Pro, is a new type of port designed to transfer both data and power between the iPad Pro and accessories like the Smart Keyboard. It’s never been clear what purpose a Smart Connector would serve on an iPhone, but speculation ranged from battery cases to wireless charging.
Hints that a Smart Connector would be included on the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus first surfaced in an image said to be of the iPhone 7 Plus shared by a Chinese website in March. It is still not clear whether that image depicts an actual iPhone 7 device, a mockup based on design schematics, or a counterfeit device. A Smart Connector was also depicted in design drawings created by Mac Fan, but those drawings are often largely based on circulating rumors.
Mac Otakara suggests Apple decided to shelve the Smart Connector after considering it as an included feature, but given the questionable nature of the original rumor, it’s possible a Smart Connector was never planned for the device. Rumors about the iPhone 7 are still uncertain with a lot of conflicting information surfacing, so the final design and features of the device continue to be up in the air.
Rumors have disagreed on features like waterproofing, the removal of the headphone jack, the thickness of the iPhone 7, stereo speakers, whether the camera will protrude, and more, but it’s likely a clearer picture of the iPhone 7 will emerge in the months leading up to its prospective fall release.
Related Roundup: iPhone 7
Tags: macotakara.jp, Smart Connector
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Tweetbot for iOS Updated With New ‘Topics’ Feature for Linking Multiple Related Tweets
Popular third-party Twitter client Tweetbot was updated to version 4.3 today, adding a new “Topics” feature that’s designed to link multiple related Tweets together in a cohesive way. Tweetbot’s Topics function is built around the Twitter feature that links Twitter conversations, something that clever Twitter users have utilized for “Tweetstorms.”
Twitter has no built-in tool for handling grouped Tweets, leading Tweetbot to fill the void with its new “Topics” function. Tweets composed as a topic in Tweetbot will be linked all together via Twitter’s built-in conversation threading and they’ll also use the same hashtag so each Tweetstorm is viewable in a cohesive way to Twitter users regardless of the Twitter client being used to view the Tweets.
Sans Tweetbot, one would link several tweets together in a “Tweetstorm” by writing an initial tweet and then replying to that tweet, deleting the username at the start of the tweet. Though the username is removed, the tweets are still linked together in a conversation. Tweetbot’s Topic feature simplifies this process.
Linking multiple tweets together is often desirable in situations where a single tweet won’t suffice, such as a lengthy rant or live event coverage.
This release introduces Topics. A Topic is a way to let you quickly Tweet a group of related Tweets without having to manually reply to yourself and/or manually add the same hashtags over and over again. They are really great for rapid fire live Tweeting events.
Topics can be created by tapping on the Settings gear when composing a Tweet. Making a topic will prompt users to give the topic a title and an optional Hashtag, with another option to save the Tweets as a collection, visible in the Tweetbot app or embeddable in websites.
Today’s update also includes several other tweaks to Tweetbot, including an option to hide the extra side column on the iPad, improved support for hardware keyboards, options for pasting images when composing a tweet, and more.
Other cool stuff
– You can now hide the extra side column on the iPad
– Much better support for hardware keyboards, including using arrow keys to navigate the timeline
– iPad images are no longer super huge
– You can paste images when composing a Tweet, really useful when using GIF (with a hard G) keyboards
– Support for Arabic language, including Right to Left UI
– Muting a user you don’t follow will now also prevent Tweets from that user from showing up in your Mentions, Lists and Searches
– Support for Twitter Collections
– Quoting a Tweet looks much nicer when composing a Tweet
– Support for Firefox browser
– Improved support for uploading video to Twitter
– Fixed an issue where timeline would get stuck
Tweetbot can be downloaded from the App Store for $9.99. [Direct Link]
Tag: Tweetbot
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Poppet – a 2D game for players of all ages (review)
Overview
Poppet, a 2D scrolling game, welcomes you with a colorful purple character wearing goggles into what looks like a scene out of a food-induced slumber in the woods. The colors are bright and the animation is seamless, but simple. The music is generic in an unobtrusive way, which fits the game.
Different levels offer different ways to navigate the game.
Game options
- Price: Free
- System: Android 4.0+
- Size: 34.2mb
- Market link: Poppet: magic miracle of fairy
Review
Poppet has two modes: simple and normal. Upon selecting the mode, you are instructed to tap on the right-side of your screen to jump up and to tap on the left-side to duck. This is only for the first level.
Upon successful completion, a new level opens. Poppet takes the scrolling game concept from level one and changes it a bit, with some levels scrolling horizontally and others vertically, with the user tapping left and right to avoid obstacles, bounce off clouds, and collect acorns.
The objective is to collect acorns and other valuables while avoiding obstacles. The game begins with six hearts on the upper left-hand screen. Each heart is akin to a life, as one is deducted every time an obstacle is not avoided. Obstacles change from level to level: thorn bushes, snowballs, and other less-than-lethal obstacles appear throughout.
Gameplay
Swim underwater & jump on clouds.
Gameplay is smooth… but a bit too slow. Playing in simple mode felt like time was moving backwards. Each jump initiated leaves your character lingering in the air waiting on gravity to do its job. You can also press down to hasten your drop, but it’s still sluggish. Normal play is a little faster but still leaves the user anticipating the end of each level instead of enjoying the game.
To ensure that this was not my experience, I let my elementary school aged kids play and they reported the same thing: the game is way too slow and easy, even in normal mode. The difficulty does rise with each level, but your patience will be tested by the first few levels and their anemic play. As such, I think this game will do just fine with toddlers but not with older kids or adults.
Navigate by jumping, ducking or from side to side, based on the screen’s orientation.
Conclusion
Poppet is a cute and fun game. The gameplay speed is a bit too slow for the average user, but this is perfect for kids or new Android gamers. The different levels and the different ways you interact with Poppet and your environment make it a worthwhile game for all, but especially for younger or inexperienced Android users.
Monoprice’s new USB type-C cables are fun, colorful and safe (review)
Monoprice recently announced its new Palette series of USB type-C cables. With an increasing number of devices featuring type-C ports, we thought it important to take a look at them to find out if they’re safe for your device and how they stack up against the competition.
The new line of cables comes in many sizes and flavors. You can pick from black, blue, green, gray, pink, purple, red, and white. They’re bright and colorful which I like to buy because brightly colored cables are easier to identify. The Palette series definitely stands out.
In addition to a number of colors, you also have several options in lengths and connectors. Monoprice sent over a six-inch, three-foot, and two six-foot long cables, but you can also get them in 18-inch and three-foot lengths. The cables come in type-C to type-C, type-C to type-B , type-C to mini type-B and type-C to type-A (male and female) combinations.
The construction of the cables is fantastic. All of the cables in the Palette series are covered in a braided nylon jacket that keeps them safe from nicks and cuts, as well as keeping them tangle free. The connectors are held by a hard plastic head that should last even when being beat-up in your bag. If they don’t, Monoprice offers a limited lifetime warranty.
Charging times are good. The cables can support up to 2.4A of power which puts this in rapid charging territory. Data transmission caps out at 480Mbps. These cables are all USB 2.0 cables so they can’t take advantage of USB 3.0 or 3.1 features, but Monoprice has informed us that they’re working on a design to incorporate USB 3.0 into its next lineup of cables.
Monoprice has ensured that the new Palette series falls under compliance with USB-IF standards. While these cables aren’t currently listed as compliant, they soon should be. Famed Googler Benson Leung, who has taken to reviewing USB type-C cables on Amazon and pointing out non-compliant cables, gave Monoprice’s previous USB type-C series, the Select Series, his stamp of approval. The new Palette series is currently for sale on Amazon, which very publicly stated that they would no longer sell out of spec cables.
When it comes to price, Monoprice is right in the ball game, with everyone else, and most of the time beats its competitors. A search of Amazon finds these results:
Six-inch USB type-C to USB type-A
Amazon: $6.49 vs. Monoprice: $3.99
Three-foot USB type-C to USB type-A
Amazon: $9.99 vs Monoprice: $4.99
Six-foot USB type-C to USB type-C
Amazon: $7.99 vs Monoprice: $6.99
If you’re interested in picking up any of Monoprice’s Palette series of cables, be sure to check out its website or its listings on Amazon.
AIVAnet 