Obama expands the NSA’s ability to share data with other agencies

The National Security Agency is now able to share raw surveillance data with all 16 of the United States government’s intelligence groups, including the Central Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security and Drug Enforcement Administration. These agencies are able to submit requests for raw data pertaining to specific cases, and the NSA will approve or deny each request based on its legitimacy and whether granting access would put large amounts of private citizens’ information at risk.

Previously, the NSA would filter information for specific requests, eliminating the identities of innocent people and erasing irrelevant personal data. That’s not the case any longer.

The rule changes open up the NSA’s trove of raw data to other intelligence agencies, making it easier for authorities to notice trends or spot troublesome communications. However, activist groups including the American Civil Liberties Union argue that relaxing the rules around sharing raw data threatens the privacy of innocent US citizens, according to The New York Times.

These changes have been a long time coming.

The NSA has a sweeping surveillance system that collects satellite transmissions, phone calls and emails that pass through networks abroad, and other bulk communications data. The program is largely unregulated by wiretapping statutes, instead adhering to regulations laid down in the aftermath of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001.

In 2002, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act secretly permitted the NSA and other agencies to share raw, domestically gathered intelligence. In 2008, the FISA Amendments Act legalized warrantless, domestic surveillance when the target was a foreigner abroad, and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court also approved the sharing of raw email data uncovered in these programs.

That same year, President George W. Bush modified Executive Order 12333 — which regulates surveillance systems not covered in wiretapping laws — to allow the NSA to share raw surveillance data. However, first the director of national intelligence, the attorney general and the defense secretary had to agree on procedures.

This brings us to 2016.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch signed the new rules on January 3rd, after Director of National Intelligence James Clapper approved them in December. President Barack Obama’s administration passed the changes in its final days in the White House — President-elect Donald Trump takes office on January 20th.

The FBI and other agencies use the systems laid out by the FISA Amendments Act and Executive Order 12333 in different ways, as noted by The New York Times. The warrantless surveillance program enabled by FISA allows FBI agents to search that program’s database when investigating ordinary criminal cases. Meanwhile, the 12333 database is limited to agents and national security analysts working only on foreign intelligence or counterintelligence operations. Either way, if an agent sees evidence of an American committing a crime, that information is forwarded to the Department of Justice.

Surveillance isn’t the only sector where the US government is attempting to keep up in an increasingly connected world. For example, in December the Department of Justice received expanded powers to search multiple computers, phones and other devices on a single warrant.

Source: The New York Times

Netflix’s ‘iBoy’ trailer introduces smartphone superpowers

Netflix has unveiled a new original film with a pretty ludicrous tech angle. iBoy (yep) stars Maisie Williams and is set to arrive on the streaming service January 27th. The plot, unfortunately, reads like a “Toast parody of a Black Mirror episode,” as my colleague Aaron put it: normal teenager Tom is beaten by thugs, leaving parts of a smartphone embedded in his brain. That somehow gives him “strange” superpowers, which he uses to save his best friend Lucy (Williams) and take revenge on the gang.

The trailer (below) is as bad as that sounds, but with teenage protagonists and phone-related superpowers, it may be what Netflix executives think the youth market wants. In any event, with reduced movie options from other studios, the streaming company is trying to crank out more and more original content, and not all of it is going to be Beasts of No Nation. Hopefully, the final film will be better than the trailer looks.

Source: Netflix (YouTube)

Fox and Intel will offer a player’s perspective during the Super Bowl

Over the last year or so, Fox Sports has been keen on bringing the latest tech to its live broadcasts. When the network hosts Super Bowl LI in a few weeks, its plans to offer viewers a player’s perspective without requiring the participants to wear cameras. Using Intel’s 360 Replay technology that’s already been employed in MLB and the NBA, Fox will “allow a moment to be recreated in 3D space” to show fans exactly what a player saw during a play. The network is calling it “Be the Player.”

This likely means that if a quarterback throws an interception during the game, Fox will be able show you exactly what he saw rather than a bird’s-eye view of the situation. The Intel 360 replay system uses an array of cameras situated around the stadium to create the on-field perspective with the help of “a huge bank of Intel computing power,” according to Fox Sports SVP Michael Davies.

After employing drones and VR for live broadcasts, Fox teamed with GoPro to offer a referee’s perspective during the Big 10 championship game. The network says the “Be the Player” perspectives will not only enhance viewing for fans, but it will give announcers a better look at exactly what happened. The visuals should allow us to see if a player’s view was blocked and any alternate options from the field level. We don’t have to wait until February 5th to see the system in action as you can watch a preview clip down below.

Source: Fox Sports

HTC will intro half as many smartphones this year

HTC may have taken a bolder approach in the smartphone world with its new U Ultra and U Play, but it’s decided to play it safe with its roadmap for the rest of the year. After today’s launch event in Taipei, I caught up with President of Smartphone and Connected Devices Business, Chialin Chang, who confirmed that HTC will only be releasing six to seven smartphones this year. While that’s a drastic cut from last year’s eleven to twelve models, he claims this has so far allowed the company to focus on its smartphones’ core features, in a bid to put up a better fight against other brands.

In the case of the two newest phones, Chang sees machine learning as their main selling point. The exec described the so-called Sense Companion virtual assistant as a combination of Google’s Awareness API, device information and third-party data. Over time, the device learns your commuting pattern, dining preferences and app usage habits, in order to offer useful tips at the right time. For instance, it will be able to tell whether you walk, drive or take public transportation to work, and will eventually offer relevant departure times; it will even throw in weather alerts before you leave home or work.

While some of these assistant features are already available on Android in some shape or form, HTC’s approach goes deeper than, say, Google Now. Besides, U Ultra users will get these notifications on the always-on second display just above the main screen. Better yet, your assistant profile data is stored in the cloud, meaning that when you switch to another HTC phone in the future, you don’t have to retrain Sense Companion; simply log into your HTC account and your new device will be just as smart as your old one.

Chang added that throughout 2017, HTC will be adding more Sense Companion features via updates, which should see the addition of more third-party services involving the likes of restaurants, malls and cab-hailing apps, in the hopes of making it more of an integral part of our lives. Or as the exec put it, “we’re not trying to emphasize A.I.; we’re trying to emphasize companionship.”

Admittedly, we won’t know how well Sense Companion works until we’ve spent some quality time with the new phones, but the U Ultra alone — set to ship in the US in March — has a few more tricks up its sleeve. Its bundled USonic USB-C earphones can quickly scan your ear canals using sonic pulse, and then the phone automatically adjusts its audio output’s frequency response to make up for weaker hearing at certain frequencies. This is more convenient than the manual tuning on the HTC 10 and the HTC 10 Evo (aka Bolt).

The U Ultra also packs four always-on microphones for biometric voice recognition plus high-res 3D audio capture — something that Chang believes is the future for mobile VR. Photography-wise, the U Ultra has the same awesome 12-megapixel UltraPixel main camera as the HTC 10, as well as a 16-megapixel front-facing camera which offers an UltraPixel mode for boosted sensitivity in dark environments. Not to mention that the device comes in a refreshingly gorgeous “liquid surface” design. “We hope consumers will really see value in this smartphone.”

For the remainder of the year, Chang told us to also expect a few Desire devices for the “fun and affordable” markets. When asked whether there will be an “HTC 11,” the exec simply said it won’t be named as such this year, so there’s a good chance that HTC is still committed to a true flagship device for 2017 — one which will hopefully take advantage of Qualcomm’s upcoming Snapdragon 835 chipset.

Glympse brings its location sharing to connected home devices

The Internet of Things is set to expand in a big way if all the voice-controlled and Alexa-equipped tech we saw at CES last week is any indication. Glympse has been offering handy location sharing from its apps for quite some time, but now the company is diving into the connected home. With FamilyMap, Glympse allows a group of people to privately share location details not only through an app, but with the help of connect devices like smart appliances, smart TVs or a home assistant like Alexa.

What’s more, Samsung is a big partner in the push. In fact, Glympse FamilyMap works with the company’s Smart Hub 2.0 software that it announced last week for its 2017 lineup that includes 10 new connected refrigerators. Those appliances have a large display in the door where you can access news, weather and your family schedule with ease. Other companies integrating FamilyMap in their devices include Logitech, General Motors, Volvo, Logitech, Garmin, Navdy, GoGo and Mojio.

Basically, the new Glympse feature serves as a hub for your family’s location info, whether it’s a smart camera picking up when your kids get home from school, your car sharing details about your evening commute or entering info with an app on your phone. Glympse’s FamilyMap SDK is available for developers to employ now, but the company says the new tool is heading to its mobile apps “in the upcoming weeks.”

Source: Glympse

Flash Sale: Get a $100 iTunes Gift Card for $85 and More

Best Buy is holding a flash sale that offers U.S. customers a $100 iTunes gift card for $85, which is 15% off, until 12 p.m. Pacific Time. The gift card is a physical version delivered with free two-day shipping to most U.S. addresses.

iTunes gift cards can be used to purchase apps, games, music, movies, TV shows, books, and more on the App Store, iTunes Store, the iBooks Store, and the Mac App Store. The credit can also be used towards an Apple Music subscription. The gift cards can be used on iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple TV, Mac, or PC.

If you are reading about this deal after it has expired, be sure to check out Best Buy’s other deals on Apple products this week, including $100 off select iPad and MacBook Pro models and discounted Apple Watch models. U.S. only.

MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy and may get paid if you click one of the above links and make a purchase.

Tags: deals, Best Buy
Discuss this article in our forums

Apple Seeds Fourth Beta of iOS 10.2.1 to Developers and Public Beta Testers

Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming iOS 10.2.1 update to developers and public beta testers, a few days after seeding the third iOS 10.2.1 beta and a month after releasing iOS 10.2, the second major update to the iOS 10 operating system.

Registered developers can download the fourth iOS 10.2.1 beta from the Apple Developer Center or over-the-air with the proper configuration profile installed.

It isn’t yet known what features are included in iOS 10.2.1, but as a minor 10.2.x update, it appears to focus on bug fixes and performance improvements rather than major outward-facing changes. No new features were discovered in the first three iOS 10.2.1 betas, but we’ll update this post if any changes are found in the fourth beta.

iOS 10.2.1 follows the release of iOS 10.2, a significant update that brought Unicode 9 emoji, a new TV app, Messages Screen Effects, Music improvements, and a whole slew of bug fixes.

Related Roundup: iOS 10
Discuss this article in our forums

Court Rules Apple Can be Sued for Monopolizing iPhone App Market

A U.S. Appeals Court today ruled that App Store customers can move forward with a lawsuit claiming Apple created an illegal app monopoly because it did not allow users to purchase iPhone apps outside of the App Store, reports Reuters.

The decision reverses a 2013 ruling that dismissed the lawsuit, originally filed in 2012. The case, Pepper et al v. Apple Inc., alleges that by not letting users purchase apps from third-party sources, there was no price competition, leading to higher app prices.

When the lawsuit was originally filed, Apple requested that it be dismissed because developers, not Apple, set prices for App Store apps. Apple simply provides the platform developers use to sell apps to customers.

According to today’s ruling, because iPhone users purchase the apps directly from Apple, they have the right to file a lawsuit against the company.

An attorney for the plaintiffs in the case told Reuters that the aim of the lawsuit is to allow people to shop for iPhone apps wherever they want, an outcome that’s unlikely due to security implications.

But if the challenge ultimately succeeds, “the obvious solution is to compel Apple to let people shop for applications wherever they want, which would open the market and help lower prices,” Mark C. Rifkin, an attorney with Wolf Haldenstein Adler Freeman & Herz representing the group of iPhone users, told Reuters in an interview. “The other alternative is for Apple to pay people damages for the higher than competitive prices they’ve had to pay historically because Apple has utilized its monopoly.”

The Appeals Court ruling does not address the specific monopoly allegations levied at Apple and pertains only to whether or not Apple can be sued for this issue.

Tag: App Store
Discuss this article in our forums

My Home Dungeon: An interesting RPG amidst the endless-game craze (review)

With the increasing amount of “endless” type games that feature almost no story and no progression, it is nice to see more ambitious projects such as My Home Dungeon. Developed by BerryRabbit, the game features an actual story, character progression and more depth than what you normally find these days in the Play Store.

Developer: BerryRabbit

Price: Free

Setup

Just as you open the app, it will ask you for permission for accessing your contacts. It’s like apps don’t even try anymore. I’ve played several hours of the game without one single instance in which my contacts are required for some kind of functionality. Why then? This is a widespread problem across the Play Store and it has no sign of stopping.

Anyways, after this, the game will take you to a short tutorial. The game will teach you in a funny way the basics of the gameplay. Let me take the opportunity to mention that the initial story of this game is hilariously ridiculous. “Oh look, there’s a huge, monster-riddled dungeon just beneath my house! And for some reason I am broke and selling it but I carry a fire-spewing sword with me everyday! And also I can throw fireballs!”

Overview

Not the best way of starting a story.

There are four main on-screen buttons: two at the left, which are used for moving your character, and two on the right. The action of the first right button depends on the circumstances. You have a bar at the top, and if it is filled up, then you launch a very strong special attack. If the bar is not filled up, then you have two medium-powered attacks. After that, you just have a VERY weak sword attack that is better left unused.

The second button is used for generating fireballs. You can hold this button and your character will generate a continuous blast of fireballs. This will turn out to be your primary weapon throughout the game.

Gameplay

Monsters come at you in waves. There are normally three or four waves per level. After clearing each wave, a new section will show up and you progress until you reach a boss level. These bosses can vary from giant variations of the monsters you normally see to thought out, challenging boss fights.

These boss sections are also where the story unfolds. At first, the story is confusing but it starts to make a bit more sense as you keep playing. Something interesting is that the story gives you choices, and the story tends to change a bit depending on what you choose. For example, I managed to make a boss angry at me and increase its powers because of an answer I selected, so be careful about that.

Controls are easy to use.

Monsters spawn from the sides of the stage, and thus, you need to carefully plan how you will approach each stage. Since there’s no way of jumping or similar, you can easily get stuck in the middle of two or more monsters without any place to go. If you deplete your three hearts, either by hitting monsters or by touching spikes, it’s instant death. You can either try the level again or watch a 30-second video ad to repeat only the last wave.

When killing monsters, they will throw gold and some energy orbs. Gold can be used for buying new equipment and increasing your character’s level. Also, you can increase the power of your fireballs and sword skills. If you are impatient, you can also buy gold through in-app purchases. The energy orbs will replenish the previously mentioned bar so that you can perform your strong sword attack.

Overall, the game feels very balanced. There’s no instance in which you feel that your death has been unfair or that it gets prohibitively hard just to push you to spending money on gold. It might get a bit repetitive after a while, though.

The way your character moves around the stage is almost as if he was walking on ice (which he actually does, in some stages), so you have to get used to it in order to avoid crashing into a monster by accident just because you moved your character in a wrong way.

Graphics

There’s a clash between different types of art.

Graphics for this game are weird. On one side, we have pixel-style sprites for the majority of elements in the game, including your character, monsters and scenery. On the other side, the game presents very polished and not-pixelated elements on the main screen. Also, this same line of design is used for sprites and characters when there is on-screen dialogue.

Both elements clash with each other and give the impression of not being cohesive. It’s like two developers didn’t communicate with each other at all and then asked the design team to create assets for each of their parts.

This doesn’t mean that the graphics look bad. I like the polished assets much more than the pixel art (especially because now it seems that every game is trying to do pixel art), and I believe that the game would benefit greatly from either converting everything to pixelated sprites (probably easier, since the majority of elements have been drawn this way) or to polished art.

Sound

Just as with many games nowadays, sound is good enough for what it is intended. Sound effects are there but they don’t excel in any way. Music for the normal levels is the same, so you will probably get tired of it at some point. For some reason, I love the boss music. It is very dramatic and enhances the act of fighting against the boss.

Ads

🙁

One of the good points of this game is that ads and other ways of monetizing the game are not intrusive. You never feel like the game is pushing you to buy gold, and there are no ads thrown at your face for no reason. Instead, the developer has made them optional, and you can totally do without them.

For example, if you lost all of your hearts at the last wave of monsters and you are too lazy to repeat the whole level, then after a 30-second video ad, you are back at the same wave. You could also repeat the whole level if you wish, and thus avoid the ad.

There’s also a way of earning gold by watching 30-second videos. If you don’t want to, then you can always repeat previous levels and earn gold that way. It’s your choice, and not the developer’s, if you want to go through ads or not. This is something increasingly uncommon in the Play Store, and for that, I applaud and thank the developer.

Conclusion

My Home Dungeon combines RPG elements with a very simple gameplay and controls to make an appealing game that can keep you entertained for a while. With the different options to increase your character’s strength, monsters getting gradually stronger, and no ads being forced down your throat, you can be confident that My Home Dungeon is worthy of being in your Android’s internal storage.

Download My Home Dungeon from the Google Play Store.

Baby’s first CES: Experiencing the world’s largest tech show for the first time

When I was a kid and my parents could still stand being within a city block of one another, I was often dragged along on incredibly long car trips to furniture and fireplace tradeshows, the largest being High Point Market in North Carolina.

Every time we went, my parents would pack armfuls of pamphlets and paper into the car, picking up samples and arguing pros and cons of one unit over another. Simply put, it was business. I wouldn’t wander around with them much, though; normally I’d be dumped in a kid’s area with plenty of other snot-nosed children whose parents tugged them along to these big grown-up hullaballoos.

There wasn’t much for kids to do at these things, my parents said.

But High Point wasn’t just some big, boring, adult convention, my dad explained. It’s actually the largest furnishings industry trade show in the world with over 11 million square feet of show space and over 2,000 exhibitors, and when he told kid me that, I was like,

“Wow. That’s… Really, really big? Cool?”

When I turned 23 (and my parents could absolutely, positively no longer stand being within a city block of on another), I was given the opportunity to experience my first tech trade show, the largest being the Consumer Electronics Show (or CES) in Las Vegas.

While High Point Market is big, CES is gigantic. At literally double the size, there are nearly 22.5 million square feet of show-space, and the city of Las Vegas becomes an inevitable black hole of technological advances for a full 3+ days with companies like Samsung and LG showing off their most innovative, eye-catching, multimillion dollar projects.

I spent some time browsing through old CES articles and websites that detailed high-points of past CES’s. There were ground-breaking, futuristic wearables like Google Glass, surgeon-steady drones that precisely hovered over their intended targets, and artificially intelligent robots that would adapt and teach its human master new foreign words every day.

“Like the world’s coolest show and tell, but like… Really, really big? Cool!”

I asked a few of my editors if they had any advice.

“Whatever you think it is, times ten,” said Derek Kessler. “Bring good, already-broken-in shoes for walking. Pack light. Have a spare battery pack (or two). Hydrate. Don’t be afraid to say no.”

Other people echoed the same thoughts, and so I packed a comfortable pair of boots, made room in my clear, CES-issued backpack for bottles of water, made sure my backup battery was charged, and set off on a plane ride from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada to Las Vegas, Nevada (side note: I should have taken the pack light note a bit more seriously. RIP the backpack I had to leave behind in lieu of those overalls I never wore).

It was my first time at a tradeshow as a grown-up. Weird.

You know that scene from Annie where she first gets introduced to everyone at Daddy Warbucks’ mansion and they sing ‘I think I’m going to like it here’? When I got to CES, that scene essentially happened, but it was with a lot more robots, VR headsets, and 3D cameras (and it was entirely in my head, but that’s neither here nor there).

The entire show was overwhelming, whimsical and fantastic. Every massive aisle had something new and mind-bending to offer, with passionate vendors looking to offer it (some even trick you into watching virtual reality pornography, but that’s a story for VR Heads).

From the practical smart tech that seemed like something out of a sci-fi flick like smart umbrellas, skin-scanning, moisture-measuring devices, and self-driving cars, to the silliness of iPhone cases that resemble butts and a $200 smart hairbrush (not everything needs to be smart, k?), the 2.5 million feet of showspace presented itself like a twisting hedge maze of innovation and blossoming creativity.

Looking for a home beer brewery? That exists. What about a wheelchair that helps the user stand and and reposition themselves? That was there at CES, too, and it won an innovation award. Looking for a Star Wars’ video game that literally lets you use the Force (aka your mind) to take down bad guys? Yup. That’s for real.

@hellorousseau cheerily rode around on motorized scooters and hover boards while I stood comfortably behind the camera. #zoomzoom #ces2017 #gocellago

A video posted by Mikah Sargent 📎 (@mikahsargent) on Jan 7, 2017 at 4:45pm PST

And as I wove in and out of aisles last weekend, pushing passed the tens of thousands of people that had descended onto Vegas for this massive techy trade show, it hit me: no matter what you’re looking for – whether you’re dealing solely with smartphones or smart home tech, drones or 3D printers, virtual reality or artificial intelligence – there was something for you at CES.

If you’re a kid being dragged to the show by your parents, there are incredible new toys being made that can let you scan your creations into digital existence. If you’re a teenager, there are incredible social media tools like 3D cameras and action cams to record your weekend shenanigans and action shots.

If you’re a young professional, there are electric bikes and scooters to get you to work on time while still saving the environment and itty-bitty storage devices that store HUUUUGE amounts of data, and if you’re anyone of any age, there are drones and self-driving cars to ogle over and dream about.

If you’re a grandparent, there are attention-grabbing toys that are bound to keep any grandchild’s fascination, and if you’re looking for something to help monitor your heart, health, and safety, you bet your bottom dollar there’s something there for you, too.

CES isn’t just a massive show and tell, it’s an experience – it’s a great big place to explore, regardless of your age or what you do for a living.

CES is an adventure, and I’m so happy that I got to explore.