Steve Jobs hated the idea of the Genius Bar, according to Apple Store creator

Why it matters to you

Ron Johnson’s interview offers a further glimpse into how Steve Jobs nearly rejected some of Apple’s best ideas.

The Apple Store has been a big part of Apple’s business model for quite some time and it is not looking like that will stop anytime soon. In a recent interview with Recode, former Apple Store chief Ron Johnson discussed the creation of the Apple Store, as well as his relationship with Steve Jobs and the so-called “idiotic” Genius Bar idea.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the interview is Johnson discussing the creation of the Apple Store in the first place. According to Johnson, Jobs first reached out to him to help start an Apple Store chain in 2000 and Jobs wanted Johnson to design and develop Apple’s entire retail strategy.

More: The latest drone footage from Apple shows off new progress at Apple Park

At the time, Johnson thought that the idea for the Apple Store should be different and each store should be matching and well-known. Johnson wanted to showcase different things that a Mac could do — for example, movie sections, music sections, photography sections, and so on.

Interestingly enough, Jobs didn’t like Johnson’s ideas early on in the process of creating the store. According to Johnson, Jobs asked him to write down his ideas. Despite panning the ideas, Jobs hired Johnson a day later.

Then there was the Genius Bar. The idea for the Genius Bar came from Johnson feeling like getting help should be a central idea for Apple customers. He was, however, met with a healthy dose of criticism by, of course, Jobs.

“I’ve never met someone who knows technology who knows how to connect with people. They’re all geeks! You can call it the Geek Bar,” Johnson recalled Jobs saying. Nevertheless, one day later, Jobs was already working on getting a trademark for the Genius Bar.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 news and rumors

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 was an absolute disaster. Sure, the phone itself was beautiful, but the device was plagued with exploding battery issues, as well as a pair of rocky recall processes. So, it makes sense that Samsung would want to forget about the Galaxy Note line altogether.

Samsung has now officially confirmed, however, that it won’t get rid of one of its most popular phones that easily. In fact, we could see a Samsung Galaxy Note 8 before the end of 2017. According to the most recent reports from SamMobile, the Galaxy Note 8 is internally code-named “Great, and bears the model number SM-N950F.

More: Plane passenger’s Galaxy Note 7 prank nearly forces the flight to be diverted

But what will the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 bring? Here’s everything we know about the potential device so far.

Samsung Galaxy Note 8 confirmed

While it was possible that Samsung was going to end the Note line altogether in favor of something else, we now know that to not be true. In fact, in an interview with CNET, Samsung’s mobile chief D.J. Koh officially confirmed that the Note line would continue with a Samsung Galaxy Note 8.

“I will bring back a better, safer, and very innovative Note 8,” Koh said in the interview.

The move will certainly be risky for Samsung — the company and the Note were tarnished during the Note 7 exploding debacle. However, during the entire process the company found that there were a lot of loyal Note fans, Koh said.

A voice assistant named Bixby

We’ve been hearing rumors about Bixby for quite some time now, and most recently we heard that the new digital assistant would likely be implemented into the Samsung Galaxy S8. Now, it looks like the Note 8 will get the same treatment. Bixby is said to be a male voice assistant, and while we don’t know too much about him just yet, we’ll likely hear more when the Galaxy S8 is launched in the next few months.

The news comes from a report from Business Korea, which highlights that the Galaxy Note 8 is in fact in the works despite the disaster of the Galaxy Note 7.

Display

Not only will Bixby be included with the Galaxy Note 8, but the display could be getting a massive boost. In fact, according to reports, the display will have 4K resolution. Some might see that as overkill, but the point of it isn’t for normal use — it’s for virtual reality, in which the phone is placed right in front of your eyes, making it much easier to see the pixels in the display. Using a 4K display will help make VR much more realistic.

Not much else is known about the Galaxy Note 8 yet, but we will update this post as we find out more.

Updated on 03-06-2017 by Christian de Looper: Added that the Galaxy Note 8 was code-named “Great,” and had model number SM-N950F.

Synology RT2600AC review

Research Center:
Synology RT2600AC

Synology has long been a networking company, but its pedigree in making routers was only tested with last year’s debut in the RT1900ac. The pivot doesn’t seem so insurmountable for a company that already knows how to make things flow in a network, but there was work to be done in what was an otherwise cautious effort.

Now, Synology has returned for an encore, only this time it has ramped things up in a few different ways to stake a bigger claim. The RT2600ac bumps up the throughput, Wi-Fi range, and delivers a host of features networking geeks would salivate over. If you care about controlling more of the minutiae of your home network, this router is worth serious consideration.

Bigger is better

Forgetting the fact that the RT2600ac is of a larger physical stature than its predecessor, the extra real estate does have quantifiable benefits. This is a quad-stream 4×4 router with theoretical top speeds of 1,733Mbps on the 5GHz band, and 800Mbps on the 2.4GHz band, though actual numbers never hit those marks.

More: Extend your Wi-Fi range with these powerful amplifiers

That’s true of any router, so the metric is only important when it comes to the consistency and range of the connection. The four antennas can be angled whichever way you choose, helping orient the signal a little more. The back has a dedicated WAN port (in blue) made for the Ethernet cable coming from the modem, while four LAN ports (in yellow) offer dedicated wired connections.

Ted Kritsonis/Digital Trends

Ted Kritsonis/Digital Trends

Ted Kritsonis/Digital Trends

Ted Kritsonis/Digital Trends

With the USB 3.0 port on the side, it’s possible to plug in an external hard drive and turn it into network attached storage (NAS). A second USB 2.0 port in the rear can be used to network a printer or add another storage option, albeit with a trade-off in read and write speed. If that wasn’t enough, there’s even an SD memory card slot on the front. These storage options prove to be doubly useful when tied into the router’s media server capabilities, which we’ll touch on.

Setup is easy, but should satisfy network geeks

Setting up the RT2600ac didn’t take long upon following the quick installation guide that comes in the box. We were up and running in five minutes doing it through a Mac, though we could have done it on a Windows PC too. Even an iOS or Android device can set up the router, through the free DS Router app.

Where other router manufacturers are lending more credence to their mobile apps for network setup and stewardship, it’s clearly the opposite in Synology’s case. The mobile app is barebones, offering a smidgen of the feature set laid out on a desktop browser.

Its storage options prove doubly useful when tied into the router’s media server capabilities.

There’s a reason for that, and the Synology Router Management (SRM) software that controls the router is why. For those familiar with Synology’s network attached storage products, the look and feel of SRM will be easy to adopt. For those who aren’t, it can be a fun place to learn. The layout is much like an operating system, with movable icons and pop-up windows that lead to simple menus. Deciphering the litany of options and services available may be overwhelming to the less discerning network administrator, but experience is not a prerequisite.

Living in the browser, SRM displays settings as if they were apps on a grid. Some of these are actionable pieces that can change the router’s usability. For example, the USB ports we noted earlier. Opening those up to network sharing by going to Control Panel > File Services, another pop-up appeared informing us an adjustment would have to be made to pass through a firewall. We clicked to apply the change, and it was done.

All – or most — the features you could ever want

Network sharing an external hard drive is a common feature with today’s routers, but in this instance, it can be tied to much more. The Package Center is a set of apps offering neat add-ons, like a VPN Server and Intrusion Detection, as two examples. Media Server turns the drive into a DLNA or UPnP-enabled home server, making it easier to stream multimedia stored on it from other devices in the home. Pointing to it from a computer would make it possible to stream that content through Plex, even away from home, provided the computer the Plex server software is running isn’t turned off.

Another option is to go the Synology route and use free mobile apps like DS Video (iOS and Android) to access and stream from the router’s connected drive directly. Like Plex, it tries to match artwork with the content you have stored on it.

Installing Download Station from the Package Center allows the router to download files from FTPs and DHCP servers, directly to a plugged-in hard drive. Cloud Station Server lets users sync data with the connected drive from multiple devices that have the client app installed. That allowed us to not only back up files we were working on, but also make sure we didn’t lose anything along the way. We found this to be more pertinent to collaborative situations, but we won’t knock something designed to help avoid data loss.

The Intrusion Prevention app we installed worked behind the scenes to identify and hold off potential intrusions into our connection, with a log and map of whatever it flagged. Security features have been known in the past to drag down a router’s performance, but we never felt that way with this app always working.

The other controls proved valuable, too. Parental Control is offered on virtually every router these days, except Synology has made it just a bit more comprehensive. For starters, sites can be blocked by category to steer away adult, gambling or hate sites from a child’s device, for example. Internet access can be blocked off for a scheduled time, or left on with certain major sites blocked manually. Facebook and YouTube, among others, have been tough to stop because they use HTTPS. The RT2600ac successfully blocked them in our tests.

Quick, though one band works better than the other

By default, Synology combines the network into one SSID, allocating connected devices to either band as it deems appropriate. Naturally, devices that don’t support the 5GHz band would automatically go to the 2.4GHz one, but those that support both are usually prioritized based on bandwidth needs.

We chose to override that and run separate networks for each band, allowing us to manually choose which devices would go where. This is needed to achieve consistent test results.

The RT2600ac significantly improves the range and speed of its predecessor.

Speed and range were good overall, despite some hiccups we noticed along the way. An older 2011 MacBook Air had some connection issues where the Wi-Fi dropped intermittently. Some latency in transfer speeds and streaming video from the connected hard drive were noticed on the 2.4GHz band, which is the router’s weakest link. The issues we encountered, albeit not numerous, were almost exclusively centered on the 2.4GHz band.

Still, the range was significantly better in the RT2600ac than it was with its predecessor. We were getting transfer and download speeds that were noticeably better than what the RT1900ac delivered. Throughput was excellent at closer range, without falling all that much the further away we ventured. While streaming video from the media server on the 2.4GHz band wasn’t consistently smooth, it was a breeze on the 5GHz band.

More: Make your home Wi-Fi faster and more reliable with these simple tune-up tips

MU-MIMO (multi-user, multi-input, multi-output) support is included here, though we wish we would have noticed it more. Admittedly, it’s a feature that relies heavily on client devices also supporting it, but we expect those to come out in bigger numbers this year. The main benefit of MU-MIMO is reducing latency in distributing the Internet connection, meaning devices receive bandwidth simultaneously, rather than sequentially in a queue.

Synology RT2600AC Compared To

Linksys Velop

Linksys WRT3200ACM

Plume Adaptive Wi-Fi

Starry Station

D-Link DIR-869 EXO AC1750

Portal Wi-Fi router

Ubiquiti Amplifi HD

Betternet Betterspot VPN Router

HooToo TripMate Titan

TP-Link AC3150

Linksys EA9500 Max-Stream AC5400

Zyxel NBG6815 AC2200

Netgear Nighthawk X4S

Netgear Nighthawk X8

Google & TP-Link OnHub

The RT2600ac also doesn’t have link aggregation — a feature some of the company’s NAS units readily support. Link aggregation uses two LAN ports to combine them into a faster throughput, and it would’ve made sense to include it here, but that probably would’ve also been more practical had there been more LAN ports to begin with. Having four on a router offering a more advanced user interface and feature set did feel like a letdown. Buying a switch can add more LAN ports, which is great if necessary, but we would have been thrilled to see eight of them back there.

Our Take

Synology managed to correct some of the flaws from its previous effort, while catering to advanced users who want greater control over how their home network does what it’s supposed to do. The SRM platform is superb, in many respects, and the add-ons offered within it only serve to elevate the RT2600ac further.

It’s not the most advanced router in the sense that it doesn’t have all the latest protocols, but users who aren’t bothered by that won’t mind that the rest of the package here works just fine.

What are the alternatives?

The DT Accessory Pack

TP-Link AV1000 2-port gigabit adapter

$42

Synology DS216J NAS DiskStation

$170

WD 2TB Elements portable external hard drive

$70

Despite all the features Synology tried to cram into this router, less enterprising users who don’t want all the detail would probably be better served by a unit that doesn’t pack in so much. The Google WiFi system, with an entirely app-based basic setup and user-friendly management, is a very worthwhile alternative.

The Ubiquiti Amplifi HD now comes as a singular unit that covers a wide space, without feeling overwhelming when managing it through the mobile app.

Those wanting even more control or an older school look and feel might want to give the Linksys WRT3200ACM a look, given how expansive and intrinsic it can be with all its customization features.

How long will it last?

There’s no reason to think the RT2600ac won’t last a good while. Synology’s warranty is good for two years, but more than that, the company’s penchant for software updates is a good reason to feel confident current features will improve, while new ones are added.

Should you buy it?

Yes, if you want a router that you can tweak to your heart’s content without spending hours doing so. Synology RT2600ac’s price point of $240 is more than most users will want to spend, it’s reasonable for a router with its feature set.

Newest Samsung Gear VR headset is now just $55 on Amazon

Here at Digital Trends, we’re big fans of the Samsung Gear VR headset. In fact, it won our Product of the Year award back in 2015. While there are newer virtual reality headsets on the market, the original Gear VR is still an excellent and affordable introduction to virtual reality. Samsung refined the design a bit last year, and the newest model is now available for $55 on Amazon.

In our review, we found that the Gear VR is a lot of fun and very easy to use. If you happen to wear glasses, it’s large enough to fit over most pairs, and the rubber mask and felt pad fit snugly around your face. The pads are also removable and washable, which should help them last longer than the cheaper foam pads found in less expensive headsets.

More: 15 immersive apps and games that make Samsung’s Gear VR a must-have

Although the headset requires a Samsung device, the Gear VR isn’t just a glorified cradle for your phone. The two work in conjunction with one another. For instance, the smart interface causes your device’s screen to shut down when you take off the headset. Likewise, it automatically starts up when you put it back on. That kind of smart integration puts the Gear VR a notch above other competing headsets.

Selecting what you want to do is as easy as looking at it and tapping the OK button on the headset. The OK button is accompanied by a directional pad and a Back button that works like the Home button on your Android device.

Among our favorite games is Land’s End, which lets players float around serene islands, solving simple puzzles with their telekinetic powers. Apps are acquired through the Oculus Store, and we found a new gem every time we opened the store.

Some of the refinements to be found in the newer 2016 model include larger lenses for a slightly enhanced field of view, an improved body design that prevents light from bleeding into the headset while in use, and USB-C connectivity for use with newer devices. Normally priced around $80 to $100, the international version of the 2016 Samsung Gear VR is now available on Amazon for just $55. Note that the international version is essentially identical to the U.S. model, but the packaging and instructions may not be in English.

Buy it for $55 on Amazon

Jury orders Time Warner Cable to pay $139M for infringing on Sprint patents

Why it matters to you

Sprint’s successful lawsuit against Time Warner Cable could deter small firms from pursuing VoIP technologies.

In 2011, Sprint sued Time Warner Cable, now part of Charter Communications, for infringing on lawsuits related to voice over internet protocol (VoIP), a method of relaying telephone calls as internet-bound digital traffic. The past six years have been chock full of back-and-forth legal wrangling but the carrier’s patience has finally paid off. On Monday, a jury in Sprint’s home district of Kansas City, Missouri, ordered Time Warner Cable to pay $139.8 million for violating the former’s intellectual property, according to Bloomberg news.

Things could get worse for Charter. The U.S. District Court for District of Kansas jury found that Time Warner Cable “willfully infringed” on Sprint’s patents with its digital home phone and business class phone services, putting the company on the line for potentially triple the amount of damages.

More: Will Facebook battle Skype, Google Voice with VoIP calling?

Charter plans to appeal. “We are disappointed with the outcome and are considering our options,” a spokesperson told Bloomberg News.

Sprint’s lawsuit stems from a series accusing Cox, Comcast, and Cable One of violating the same VoIP patents at issue in the Time Warner Cable case.

Comcast fought the charges, filing a successful countersuit against Sprint. In 2014, Sprint was ordered to pay $7.5 million to Comcast, a verdict that an appeals court affirmed in January.

The Cox case was initially thrown out by a Delaware judge, but that decision was overruled on appeal. Sprint’s lawsuit against Cable One, meanwhile, was stayed in 2015.

More: Dutch landline phones at home and at work with these VoIP services

Cable providers aren’t the only companies in Sprint’s legal crosshairs. The carrier won $80 million from Vonage in a 2007 settlement, and soon after an undisclosed amount from telecommunications company Paetec Holding Corp. In 2008, Sprint extracted payments from small VoIP providers like Nuvox (now Windstream), Broadvox Holdings, and Big River Telephone Company.

Sprint’s VoIP lawsuits credit discoveries by an employee named Joe Christie for a “sea change in telephony,” but as Ars Technica notes, the carrier’s role in the development of VoIP isn’t particularly distinguishable. The first digital voice packets were sent over ARPAnet, a government-funded precursor to the internet, in 1973. And Speak Freely, one of the first widely used software applications for VoIP, was published as public domain software in 1991.

More: Ooma brings new wrinkle to VoIP calling

But historically, that has not stopped Sprint and others from filing lawsuits left and right. On the heels of the success of Vonage, a VoIP provider credited with popularizing the technology, telecommunication companies like AT&T and Verizon took the internet-based competitor to court, arguing that VoIP patents played a crucial role in the services’ development. Vonage settled a suit with AT&T in 2009 for $39 million, and one with Verizon the same year.

A common form of web encryption has been shattered, but it might be for the best

When a paper demonstrating the first known SHA-1 collision was published last month, it caused quite a stir among the tech community. SHA-1 is still an extremely popular form of encryption, and breaking it wide open could expose a wealth of sensitive information.

“It’s moved from a theoretical attack, to a provable, real-world attack with proofs of concept that are out there in the wild,” said Brian Hanrahan, product manager as endpoint security specialist Avecto, speaking to Digital Trends on the telephone. “So, the probability of someone out there leveraging a SHA-1 collision attack has increased exponentially, because now there’s code that shows how to do it.”

More: Google will stamp down on SHA-1 security certificates in 2016

When Google releases the source code behind its findings, anyone who wanted to force a collision for malicious purposes could use it as a template. That sounds dangerous – but is it really the threat it’s made out to be?

The Collision

“I do think that there’s a lot of panic around this, when there probably oughtn’t be,” said Tod Beardsley, the director of research at security engineering firm Rapid7. “Can criminals run out and use this attack to steal money?  I don’t see an application like that.”

“These collisions in SHA-1 required the attackers to have control of both the ‘good’ data and the ‘bad’ data,” Beardsley explained, referring to the two PDF documents that were forced to ‘collide,’ occupying the same SHA-1 hash. “When you control both, it’s kind of game over if you don’t trust that person.”

The paper demonstrated how to cause a collision between two hashes, but both documents were in control of the researchers. In terms of carrying out an attack, this isn’t as useful as being able to force a collision with a hash controlled by someone else.

Beardsley told us of a scenario where someone might want to inject ‘evil code’ into Linux. A SHA-1 collision could be used to do so, but carrying out such an attack would still require impersonation of a trusted user to have control over an iteration of the code. While not impossible, the complexity of the task means it would probably be possible only by the largest and most skilled hacking organizations.

More: Here’s how all the major web browsers are tightening up web security

Still, a company like Google wouldn’t invest time and effort into its collaborative research with the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica for no good reason. Though a widespread attack that uses a SHA-1 collision isn’t necessarily imminent, this is important work that will help push internet security standards forward.

A Nudge in the Right Direction

“We’ve had some time, right?” said Beardsley. “We’ve seen this coming down the road. And this is going be the case for many hashing algorithms. As time goes on, and science gets better, and computers get cheaper, we’re going to find that hashing algorithms will fall over in some cases.”

For the last few years, it’s been clear that SHA-1 was on borrowed time. The companies behind major web browsers like Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer have already started putting their deprecation plans into action.

“It was around late 2012, early 2013, when all the browser manufacturers got together and said, ‘this is not gonna work anymore, let’s start phasing out certificates that use SHA-1 hashing to validate that the server’s real,’” explained Beardsley. “That all was happening up until December 31 of last year, that’s the point where we were supposed to be all off SHA-1 certificates.”

“People are aggressively moving to SHA-256; Microsoft, Google, all of the major technology companies have been doing that,” said Hanrahan. “I think the impetus that’s going to drive people to do it faster now is that there’s a proven, real-world attack.”

Evidence of the SHA-1 collision, which was published online under the catchy SHAttered moniker to ensure maximum visibility, is of critical importance to the continued effort to transition away from the algorithm. While we’ve known that SHA-1 was theoretically unsafe for some time, it takes more than potential threats to prompt the widespread action necessary to facilitate large-scale deprecation.

The possibility of a SHA-1 collision wasn’t enough to make companies as powerful as Microsoft and Google to enforce the switchover to SHA-2. The paper published last month, which makes it a reality, will hopefully force the issue, as with the source code out in the open, SHA-1 is something of a sitting duck — even if it is unlikely that attackers would choose to abuse its weaknesses over another, easier strategy.

But why would anyone want to keep SHA-1 in place?

Inertia and the Legacy Problem

When I asked Tod Beardsley why it was so difficult to retire hashing technology like SHA-1, he laughed. “It’s kind to say difficult, I think it’s impossible,” he explained. “I still use MD5 for things, and MD5 has been dead forever. When it comes down to it, in most cases, it’s good enough — this will set cryptographers’ teeth on edge, saying things like that, but that’s kind of the reality of those implementations,” said Beardsley. “I think you have a lot of inertia, when something kind of, mostly, works. It kind of still mostly works. That would describe the whole internet: the internet kind of, mostly, works.”

You can’t go back to software houses that are out of business and ask them to generate a SHA-2 hash.

It’s a classic case of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,’ except in this case, the thing in question is very old, and would break if it was struck by a strong wind. Still, it’s inconvenient to replace SHA-1 with something else, especially while it’s still in working order. And there’s another reason why SHA-1 won’t be wiped from the face of the earth completely any time soon. It’s used to hash software, which is far more stoic than the living, breathing internet.

“The legacy problem is really what needs to be dealt with,” said Hanrahan. “For software that’s been generated in the past, and for which there’s only a SHA-1 hash, you can generate a SHA-256 hash for those files, or whatever entity you’re trying to identify — but you have to start with a known, trusted source.”

More: Research paper provides evidence of first known SHA-1 collision

He gives the example of writing and compiling a piece of software on his computer, right now. He could hash it with MD5, SHA-1, or SHA-256, and at that time, he would be certain that the hashes relate specifically to that piece of software. However, if he were to compile the software and send it to another person, they would have no way of verifying what the hash was when he created the software. They could produce a SHA-256 hash, but they would have no way of being completely sure that the software hasn’t been tampered with beforehand.

“You can’t go back in time to software houses that are already out of business and ask them to generate a new SHA-2 hash for software that they created 25 years ago,” he explained.

In most cases, you would likely be safe to assume that the SHA-1 hash is legitimate, and generate a SHA-2 hash for that software. However, now that last month’s paper has outlined a way to force a collision between two SHA-1 hashes, there’s an element of doubt. “Using SHA-1 to verify a binary is no longer considered absolutely precise and perfect,” added Hanrahan.

Evidently, this kind of change in security standards doesn’t come easy. And once SHA-1 has been phased out in favor of SHA-2, what’s to stop the powers that be pushing for a move to SHA-3? Couldn’t this game of catch-up go on indefinitely? No — and we have math to thank for that.

What’s next, and the quantum problem

“With regards to SHA-2, if you think about the enormous computing power that it takes to break a SHA-1 based certificate, it’s not like we’re doubling it to go to SHA-2,” said Hanrahan. “It’s an exponential difference in the amount of computing power that would be required.”

“Quantum computing also, incidentally, breaks all existing cryptography”

SHA-2 is the successor to SHA-1, and consists of six different functions with varying hash values. “It’s not like tomorrow they’re going to turn around and say, ‘oh, we broke SHA-2 now,’ because it’s a computing power problem,” Hanrahan added. “It’s taken basically all the computer power they have to generate one collision for SHA-1, and to show how to do it.”

Outside of vulnerabilities that are being kept secret, it seems that SHA-2 will be sufficient for current hardware. However, when our computers take their next evolutionary step, cryptography must do the same. Quantum computing will change all the rules when it’s practical, according to Beardsley.

“Quantum cryptography tends to favor the secret keeper, rather than the breaker — the cryptoanalyst,” he said. “According to what we know about math today, that seems to be the endpoint. We can’t really see beyond that.”

The advent of the quantum computer will make the upheaval caused by the transition from SHA-1 to SHA-2 look miniscule. “[Quantum computing] also, incidentally, breaks all existing cryptography, but from that point on, things get pretty good for the secret keepers.”

Still, once SHA-1 has been deprecated, SHA-2 should be able to keep things safe and secure until the quantum future arrives. That’s why the research carried out by Google and the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica is so important. It’s not that SHA-1 is going to used to facilitate an attack imminently, but with a better successor already available, it’s good to encourage companies to use it. That will keep our data safer, and better protect against attacks that would give us real reason to panic.

Turn your bug-finding skills into more cash as Google, Microsoft hike bounties

Why it matters to you

If you have the skills, you can now make even more money finding bugs in Google and Microsoft systems.

If you’re a coder or other highly technical sort who can dig into a system and find bugs, then you can turn that skill into some cash. Developers big and small, including major players like Google and Microsoft, have programs that will pay you real money for discovering flaws and vulnerabilities in their systems.

Both Google and Microsoft recently decided to up ante in their bounty programs, jacking up the amount they pay people for finding bugs. Google made the first increase, and then Microsoft literally doubled down on its own program, as FossBeta reports.

More: Google’s Project Zero publishes another Microsoft vulnerability

Google increased its largest award level to $31,337 for anyone identifying a remote code execution vulnerability. That’s a more than 50 percent increase from the previous cap of $20,000. Unrestricted file system or database access bugs can bring the successful bounty hunter between $10,000 and $13,337.

Google Application Security Blog

Google’s bounty program pays out for vulnerabilities discovered in various Google properties such as Google Search, the Chrome web store, Google play, and more. Some of the specific bugs that Google is looking for are command injections, deserialization flaws, and sandbox escapes.

Microsoft is looking for cross site-scripting, cross-site request forgery, and a variety of other flaws in its systems. The company has recently suffered some zero-day bugs identified and publicized by the Google Zero program before it could fix them, which might be part of the reason why Microsoft doubled its bug bounty from $15,000 to $30,000.

Security is big business, as is cybercrime. Hackers can make tons of money exploiting systems and then selling the private information they’re able to steal, and bug bounty programs like Google’s and Microsoft’s help even the playing field.

Nanoengineers’ 3D-printing technique may bring lab-grown organs to life

Why it matters to you

Rapidly 3D-printed blood vessel networks may help make lab-grown artificial organs a reality.

3D-printed organs are a biopunk’s dream and which may soon come true thanks to researchers from the University of California, San Diego.

Led by Shaochen Chen, the team of nanoengineers developed a new method for 3D printing biomimetic blood vessel networks, which may help lay the foundation for functioning lab-grown tissue and organs.

Artificial blood vessel networks — which help transport nutrients, blood, and waste — have been 3D printed by other researcher labs in the past, though these methods have proven to be time-consuming and expensive. In his research, Chen sought to make the process faster and cheaper and to develop a network sophisticated enough to be integrated with the human body.

“We used hydrogel biomaterials that are biocompatible for potential clinical uses,” he told Digital Trends.

More: Scientists use stem cells to grow animal-free pork in a lab

To make the vessels more efficiently, Chen and his team used multiple cell types and a new 3D-printing method they developed themselves.

Their first steps were to develop a 3D model of the blood vessel network on a computer, which then converts the model into a series of 2D images and transfers these images to millions of microscopic mirrors. The mirrors use ultraviolet (UV) light to reflect the images onto a mixture of live cells and polymers that solidify upon contact with the UV light. As the 2D images are solidified, one after another, the 3D structure begins to take shape.

While traditional techniques may take hours to complete, the UC San Diego lab can complete the task in just a few seconds, according to the researchers, who published a paper detailing their study in the journal Biomaterials.

So far, the researchers have been able to graft the 3D-printed tissue into the skin wounds of mice. After two weeks, they analyzed the wounds again and saw that the lab-grown tissue had successfully integrated into the host’s blood vessel network.

A startup called Allegro 3D is working to commercialize this technique, while Chen and his team are looking to optimize the conditions for growing fully functioning blood vessel networks for clinical applications.

Looking at Google Play’s most popular content over the past 5 years

A top 5 list doesn’t tell the whole story, but it’s still interesting.

Google Play has been around for five years now — a surprisingly long time — and to celebrate, Google has compiled multiple lists of the top five pieces of content in each part of the store. Games, apps, songs, albums, movies and books are the big categories here, and the lists round out just about as you’d expect.

Top installed games

Candy Crush Saga
Subway Surfers
Temple Run 2
Despicable Me
Clash of Clans

Top installed apps
(not including pre-installed apps)

Facebook
Facebook Messenger
Pandora Radio
Instagram
Snapchat

Top selling songs

Ed Sheeran – Thinking Out Loud
Lorde – Royals
Taylor Swift – Blank Space
Mark Ronson feat. Bruno Mars – Uptown Funk
Pharrell Williams – Happy

Top selling albums

Adele – 25
Eminem – The Marshall Mathers LP2 (Deluxe)
Taylor Swift – 1989
Drake – If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late
Kendrick Lamar – To Pimp A Butterfly

Top selling movies

The Interview
Frozen
Deadpool
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Guardians of the Galaxy

Top selling books

Fifty Shades of Grey, by E L James
The Hunger Games trilogy, by Suzanne Collins
A Game of Thrones, by George RR Martin
The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green
Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn

Do any of the top charts stand out to you? Everything seems about as you’d think if you were asked blind what would top the list on the Play Store. If you want to download any of this top content for yourself, Google Play has a handy page with all of it in one place.

Pixel and Nexus factory images with March 2017 security patch now available

You can now get up to the latest software without waiting for an over-the-air update.

In keeping with its regular cadence of releasing full software builds for its latest devices, Google has updated its factory image page to include Android 7.1.1 builds with the March 2017 security patch for its latest phones and tablets.

The latest images are available for the Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel C, Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6 and Nexus 9. You may also recall that this will be the final full platform update for the Nexus 6, with only security patches coming to the phone going forward until its support is ended.

These full images are extremely useful if you’ve flashed a custom ROM on your phone, or perhaps haven’t used it in a while and want to skip through OTA updates and just hit the latest software all in one step. In the most common use case, it can also be used to just update to the latest software release rather than waiting for the software to arrive automatically.

No matter the case, we have a great guide to manually updating your Nexus or Pixel, including step-by-step instructions for bringing your phone or tablet to its latest version. Remember that using a factory image doesn’t have to wipe your phone, either — we show you how at the link above.

Google Pixel + Pixel XL

• Google Pixel and Pixel XL review
• Google Pixel XL review: A U.S. perspective
• Google Pixel FAQ: Should you upgrade?
• Pixel + Pixel XL specs
• Understanding Android 7.1 Nougat
• Join the discussion in the forums!

Google Store
Verizon