Home Depot left customers’ unprotected personal data online

It’s been awhile since hackers broke into Home Depot’s servers and stole 56 million customers’ credit card information back in 2014. But recently, a tipster pointed business watchdog site Consumerist to a web address under the HomeDepot.com domain. The unprotected page stored photos of various home improvement projects…and 13 Excel spreadsheets filled with customer data. All told, it had names, phone numbers, and physical and email addresses for up to 8,000 people. And all those files sat there unprotected, unencrypted and discoverable by search engines for an unknown period of time.

Home Depot has since removed the files from the site, according to Consumerist. The spreadsheets didn’t contain credit card data, bank account information or Social Security numbers — all of which are legally protected, and land whomever exposed it in legal hot water. In other words, leaving this non-financial/non-SS personal information accessible on the internet (however indirectly) isn’t necessarily illegal.

It is, however, terrible for an exposed user’s privacy — and could potentially leave them open to future scamming. Names, phone numbers and physical and email addresses are all details that could be used in a phishing attempt to pretend familiarity while asking for more crucial information.

The personal data left online were all complaints logged for Home Depot’s MyInstall program, which the company offers to help customers communicate with contractor installers. It included product types, installation services and the name of the person servicing the complaint — yet more details that could have further helped scammers pretending to contact customers on an official basis.

To be clear, this wasn’t a breach of security, just an unfortunate patch of customer data erroneously left open to the public.

“The information was out there, and as hard as it would have been for anyone to find, it shouldn’t have been. This was an inadvertent human error that we addressed as soon as we discovered it. Although the data was low-risk, we take the matter very seriously,” a Home Depot spokesperson told Engadget over email.

Unfortunately, even though the data wasn’t released as the result of a deliberate hack, it was still available for an unknown period of time. We won’t know the ramifications of this mistake unless someone attempts to take advantage of any of Home Depot’s 8,000 unlucky customers affected.

Source: Consumerist

Facebook creators will profit from people stealing videos

Facebook’s video platform has grown like a weed, mainly thanks to auto-plays and a significant rise in accounts presenting other people’s work as their own. In 2015, the company introduced a video matching system aimed at curbing the practice, and now it’s taking that one step forward with the promise that original video creators can profit when other people pirate their creations.

According to Facebook, the updated version of its Rights Manager tool will still tell rights owners when their work has been stolen, but it can now also automatically act on their behalf too. When a video is flagged, creators can decide whether they want the system to block offending content immediately after it’s been uploaded, monitor the pirated video’s metrics in order to make a more informed decision or simply decide at a later date.

Rights owners will also be given the option to claim ad earnings against video content that matches their own. Facebook is still in the early days of testing ad breaks midway through videos, but if a flagged video does generate an advertisement, the original creator can claim a share of the cash. YouTube employs a similar policy, allowing rights holders to profit from videos flagged by Content ID.

It’s a notable step by Facebook, as it attempts to lure viewers away from YouTube and Twitch towards its own News Feed and Live platforms. It knows that if creators can’t trust it to filter copycats, they may not consider posting there at all. Facebook says the updates are already rolling out and will be available globally in the coming weeks.

Via: Recode

Source: Facebook Newsroom

Feud Between Apple and Qualcomm Continues as Apple Stops Paying iPhone Royalties Completely

About two weeks ago, Qualcomm reported that Apple suppliers were underpaying royalties in the second fiscal quarter of 2017, as a way for Apple to regain the unpaid royalties owed to the company by Qualcomm. At the time, Qualcomm wasn’t sure whether or not Apple would continue to pay royalties at all, and today the manufacturer — which provides LTE modems for iPhones — has said that Apple will not pay its iPhone suppliers for royalties related to sales in Q1 2017.

Furthermore, Qualcomm stated that Apple has “indicated it will continue this behavior until its dispute with Qualcomm is resolved.” The royalty cut-off hurts Qualcomm because the manufacturer’s licensing deals are directly with iPhone suppliers.

The total loss of royalty revenue is estimated by Qualcomm to be about $500 million, which is expected to hit the company hard in terms of share prices and investors watching the dispute between the two companies. In its report adjusting the financial guidance for the third quarter of 2017, Qualcomm’s previous estimate of $5.3 billion – $6.1 billion in revenue has been marked down to $4.8 billion – $5.6 billion, amid the ongoing suing and counter-suing actions taking place between Qualcomm and Apple.

In a statement, Qualcomm general counsel Don Rosenberg said that the company will continue to “vigorously” defend its business model as the legal dispute continues.

Qualcomm Incorporated today announced that it has been informed by Apple Inc. that Apple is withholding payments to its contract manufacturers for the royalties those contract manufacturers owe under their licenses with Qualcomm for sales during the quarter ended March 31, 2017. Apple has indicated it will continue this behavior until its dispute with Qualcomm is resolved.

“Apple is improperly interfering with Qualcomm’s long-standing agreements with Qualcomm’s licensees,” said Don Rosenberg, executive vice president and general counsel of Qualcomm. “These license agreements remain valid and enforceable. While Apple has acknowledged that payment is owed for the use of Qualcomm’s valuable intellectual property, it nevertheless continues to interfere with our contracts. Apple has now unilaterally declared the contract terms unacceptable; the same terms that have applied to iPhones and cellular-enabled iPads for a decade. Apple’s continued interference with Qualcomm’s agreements to which Apple is not a party is wrongful and the latest step in Apple’s global attack on Qualcomm. We will continue vigorously to defend our business model, and pursue our right to protect and receive fair value for our technological contributions to the industry.”

The legal dispute between the two companies follows a complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission, stating that Qualcomm used anticompetitive tactics to remain on top of the LTE modem supply chain for smartphones. Another contributing factor to the bad blood between the companies centers around Apple’s decision to start using modem chips from Intel in some of the iPhone 7 devices launched last year, instead of tapping Qualcomm exclusively like it usually does.

Apple claimed that Qualcomm was charging unfair royalties “for technologies they have nothing to do with,” since the manufacturer provides only one part of the whole of the iPhone. “Despite being just one of over a dozen companies who contributed to basic cellular standards, Qualcomm insists on charging Apple at least five times more in payments than all the other cellular patent licensors we have agreements with combined,” the Cupertino company stated in its lawsuit.

Tags: lawsuit, Qualcomm
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Life may seed from planet to planet in TRAPPIST-1 system, study finds

Why it matters to you

If life exists on one planet in the relatively nearby TRAPPIST-1 system, it could potentially inhabit many.

In February, NASA announced the discovery of seven Earth-sized exoplanets in the TRAPPIST-1 system, three of which orbited in the habitable zone. Now, researchers from the University of Chicago have concluded that, if life does exist in that solar system, it could feasibly be transferred from planet to planet.

It won’t be easy for this to happen though. Sebastiaan Krijt, one of the researchers behind the study, told Digital Trends that a number of conditions have to align. “Life must develop on one of the planets, an impact has to eject life-bearing material from that planet, and this material needs to avoid being sterilized during the initial impact, the transfer to, and the impact onto another habitable planet,” he said.

The concept of life seeding from one planet to another (known as lithopanspermia) has been speculated for decades. Some experts even argue that life on Earth may have originated elsewhere, brought here by an asteroid many millions of years ago. Having previously discussed the idea with his co-author, Tim Bowling, Krijt decided to test out the hypothesis in the TRAPPIST-1 system after February’s announcement.

The researchers ran several simulations of rocks being expelled from the TRAPPIST-1 planets, which are relatively tightly packed within the sun’s habitable zone. In total they tallied 100,000 simulated trajectories and found that, with the right conditions, life could feasibly transfer in a period as short as 10 years.

Still, Kirjt admits there’s a lot of uncertainty and the likelihood of all the conditions being met is rare. “What our research suggests however, is that surviving the journey between planets should be much easier in a compact system like TRAPPIST-1 than in, for example, our own solar system, because the timescales associated with transport in TRAPPIST-1 are orders of magnitude shorter,” he said.

A paper detailing the study was published this week in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Pixel and Pixel XL will get guaranteed updates until Oct. 2018, security patches through Oct. 2019

Pixels will receive at least two platform updates.

Last year, Google provided a timeline for when the Nexus 6P and 5X will stop receiving guaranteed updates. The company is now doing the same for the Pixel and Pixel XL. Like the Nexus devices, the Pixels will pick up guaranteed platform updates until October 2018, which will be two years from their release date. The phones will continue to receive software patches through October 2019.

The update schedule is exactly the same as what we’ve seen for the Nexuses last year, but with the Pixels being sold as premium devices, there was a belief that Google would continue to support them for longer. With the company now providing a specific timeline, that doesn’t look to be the case. That said, the Pixels are guaranteed two platform updates — the Android O update later this year, and the Android P update that will eventually make its way to devices sometime in 2018.

Google may continue to deliver updates after that time — it has done just that in the past — but there won’t be any obligation to do so for the Pixels. You’re still getting guaranteed updates for two years, and security patches through the end of 2019.

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How to use Game Tools on the Samsung Galaxy S8

What are Game Tools and Game Launcher and why are they so important this time around?

Samsung introduced Game Tools on their phones starting with the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, and then retroactively added the feature to the Galaxy S6. Turning on Game Tools on those phones activated floating button, which provided easy access to a bunch of really handy settings for screen recording and avoiding distractions during gaming marathons.

With the Galaxy S’s unique 18.5:9 aspect ratio, pretty much every game is going to feature ugly letterboxing by default.

A notable feature on the Galaxy S8 is the switch from physical buttons to on-screen navigation control. Samsung has integrated the Game Tools icon into the navigation bar when you’re playing a game, keeping it always at close hand without a clunky floating button. It’s a subtle but significant change that keeps everything in a standard location without distracting from the on-screen action.

With the Galaxy S’s unique 18.5:9 aspect ratio, pretty much every game is going to feature ugly letterboxing by default. Samsung has addressed that with an option to scale and adapt games to fill the full screen built right into the Game Tools Menu. Other options let you disable notifications, turn off the home button’s functionality during gameplay, as well as turn off touch sensitivity around the edges of the curved screen — all crucial features for not getting distracted while playing.

How to turn on Game Launcher

If you’re planning to play games on your Galaxy S8, you’ll definitely want to turn on Game Launcher, which unlocks the Game Tools menus during gameplay.

Tap the Settings icon from your app drawer.
Tap Advanced features.
Tap Games.
Tap the toggle switch to turn on Game Launcher.

To actually set up and configure the Game Tools settings, you’ll need to actually launch a game and access the Game Tools menu.

How to use Game Tools while playing

Accessing the full suite of Game Tools options while you’re playing a game is really easy — simply swipe to reveal the navigation buttons and you’ll see two extra buttons flanking the standard home, back, and recent apps buttons.

The one on the left is the Game Tools main menu, while the one on the right can be set up as a shortcut to take screenshots or record video. If you’re planning to record video, you’ll want to tweak those recording settings there ahead of time.

The key features included in the Game Tools menu are:

• Full Screen — Arguably the most important button in the menu. By default, games will play with letterboxed black bars on the top and bottom or sides (depending on orientation). Turning on Full Screen will scale up your games to make use of the full screen, edge to edge. Toggling this will force the game to restart.
• No alerts during game — Pretty straight forward. This disables notifications from popping up and ruining your flow.
• Hard press button lock — Disables the ability to accidentally tap the digital home button.
• Edge touch lock — Disables touch sensitivity around the curved edges of the screen to help you avoid accidental touches.
• Screen Touch Lock — Pauses the game and locks the screen. Swipe to unlock the screen and return to the game.
• Screenshot — Tap to quickly take a screenshot while in the heat of the action. Sure beats trying to press the power and volume-down buttons!
• Record — Lets you quickly record gameplay videos as you play, with options to record yourself via the front-facing camera and microphone for creating your own Let’s Play videos and live streams.

These settings will remain in place across all your games, so you won’t have to individually turn on Full Screen mode with all your games.

Opposite the main Game Tools menu is the shortcut button, which gives you quick access to one of three actions: take a screenshot, start and stop recording video, or turn on Screen Touch Lock. It’s very easy to setup and can be changed on the fly as needed.

Long press the Shortcut button.

Select your preferred action.

If you’re planning to record and share your gameplay footage, you’ll want to head into the video record settings to set up things just the way you want. You have the option of including a profile image or logo on your video capture, or turn on the front-facing camera for that classic Let’s Play picture-in-picture video format. You’ll also want to set the video resolution, but be aware of that there are recording limitations — the Galaxy S8 is able to record up to 4GB per recording, which equates to 80 minutes of gameplay at 1080px resolution, its highest setting.

And that’s it!

Have you been gaming on the Galaxy S8? What do you think of the Game Tools and how does the experience hold up against previous phones you’ve owned? Let us know in the comments!

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Midnight Black OnePlus 3T is already sold out in most countries

The limited edition Midnight Black OnePlus 3T is nearly sold out a month after its launch.

Still interested in buying the Midnight Black variant of the OnePlus 3T? You’ll have to act fast, as the limited edition model is sold out in most countries. In a tweet, OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei revealed that the Midnight Black edition is up for sale in just two markets, Hong Kong and the UK, and that it is likely to be sold out in a few days’ time.

Aside from the matte black color, the phone is identical to the standard version of the OnePlus 3T. That means a 5.5-inch Full HD AMOLED display, Snapdragon 821, 6GB of RAM, 128GB storage, 3400mAh battery, and 16MP front and rear cameras. If you’re looking to pick one up in the UK, it’ll set you back £439. Best head to the link below to grab one before it sells out.

See at OnePlus UK

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HTC squeezes a lot of stuff in this teaser video for the HTC U 11

HTC wants you to squeeze its upcoming phone.

HTC is all set to unveil its next flagship, the HTC U 11, on May 16. Ahead of the launch event, the Taiwanese manufacturer is teasing the phone’s marquee feature in a short video where people are squeezing stuff. You should just see the video:

The HTC U 11 will feature a squeezable frame that lets you perform actions by pressing on the sides of the device. Dubbed Edge Sense, the feature will let you configure separate actions for varying grip levels. As for the phone itself, recent leaks indicate the HTC U 11 will offer a 5.5-inch QHD display, Snapdragon 835, 4GB of RAM, 64GB internal memory, 12MP UltraPixel camera, and a 3000mAh battery.

HTC is promoting the feature as a natural and effortless way to interact with your phone. We’ll see how useful it is when it comes to real-world usage in a few weeks’ time. In the meantime, what do you guys think of the HTC U 11?

Galaxy S8 vs. Galaxy S7: Which is best for VR?

Getting the best VR experience out of your phone is absolutely a luxury, but not without actual value.

No one is going out and choosing a phone to use all day every day because it offers a good VR experience. That is never going to be the feature that pushes someone to make a purchase. That doesn’t mean it’s not a point on the sheet when considering which phone to get, and this year there’s a curious question to answer. The Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S8 are fairly similar on paper, at least as far as hardware goes. How does that affect VR, and are these smaller differences actually enough to make you consider spending up to the newest model instead of saving some money and getting the Galaxy S7 on sale?

Lets break it down piece by piece, so you can see which is doing to deliver the best VR experience.

More than a spec sheet

The things that matter most when considering how a phone will perform in VR are few. You need a quality display with a decent pixel density, a processor capable of maintaining that 60fps sweet spot no matter what while flawlessly syncing audio for full immersion, and you need a battery that will get you through the fun without needing to be connected to power. It’d also be nice if heat weren’t something you needed to worry about when in VR for extended periods of time, but we’ll look at that separately down below. For now, lets look at the specs.

See? The differences sure look slight here. The Galaxy S7 display is actually slightly denser than the S8, and physically a little lighter as well. The latest Snapdragon or Exynos processor will obviously be in the latest phone, but the battery capacity is the same and both phones handle audio output the same.

Is the S8 actually better than the S7 for VR? What it really comes down to is processing power, and what that means when doing something in VR. Since most VR games are frame locked, you’re not looking for less stuttering or more detail because these games are built once for all of the Samsung Gear VR supported devices. The thing that will really show which phone is superior for VR is how much battery is consumed performing the same tasks in VR, and how much heat in generated while performing those tasks.

Busting out the thermal camera

These two phones are running as close to the same software as possible, with the same apps installed. Any background apps that can be closed have been killed, so this is as close to an identical environment as can be reasonably expected without modifying these phones. After half an hour of gaming in VR, specifically playing Wands with the new Gear VR Controller, the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S8 look like this:

As you can see, the Galaxy S8 produces far less heat than the Galaxy S7, which is to be expected now that the processors are physically smaller but also more powerful in this new model. The Galaxy S8 also consumed less power while in VR, which is important.

Less heat is always good. Under these conditions, the Galaxy S8 will basically never show you a heat management warning while in the Gear VR. While it is rare to see a heat warning in a Galaxy S7, this phone sits much closer to that line most of the time in VR. More heat means more stress on the battery, which often means faster deterioration over time. This isn’t a huge concern with the Galaxy S7, but it is something to keep in mind when comparing the two.

Which is better for VR?

The truth is, both of these phones offer a great VR experience. You’ll find a slightly better overall experience with the Galaxy S8, but is that difference enough to justify spending the extra money? Probably not on its own. If you found other features on the Galaxy S8 good enough to push you over that buying line, like the retina scanner or double the internal storage, a slightly better Gear VR experience with noticeably less heat would be icing on that cake.

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HTC again confirms squeezy sides on HTC U with official teaser, see it here

HTC will unveil its new flagship Android smartphone on Tuesday 16 May but has already confirmed its name and one of the handset’s long-rumoured new features: squeezable sides.

The company has posted an official teaser video for the phone, entitled “HTC Squeeze the Brilliant U”, which follows up on a previous tweet and invitation to watch the launch event live.

Added to the invite for the launch event, received by Pocket-lint last week, it cements the name, “HTC U”. It also shows a variety of different objects being man-handled, a reference to the touch-enabled sides of the phone many have previously reported on and HTC itself has hinted at before.

There are also a couple of new, vague shots of the phone in the teaser so it’s well worth a watch.

The HTC U, formerly known as Ocean or HTC U 11, is thought to sport a 5.5-inch WQHD 2560 x 1440 display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, 12-megapixel rear camera and 16-megapixel front-facing camera.

It is also said to come with 64GB or 128GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot for expansion, Android 7.1 Nougat and HTC’s own Sense 9 UI.

There have been plenty of rumours in the build up to the May event. You can read the best of them here: HTC U 11 ‘Ocean’: What’s the story on HTC’s next flagship?