Samsung’s mobile bug bounty program pays up to $200,000

Samsung is the latest in a long line of tech titans to announce its very own bug bounty program. As its title suggests, the newly-launched Mobile Security Rewards Program will pay users for reporting vulnerabilities in the company’s latest firmware. If you spot a weakness, and back it up with solid research, you could pocket up to $200,000. That’s in line with the sums offered by the likes of Google (for Android) and Apple. Like those companies (along with Microsoft, Facebook, and Twitter), the rewards program sees Samsung reaching out to researchers to help squash bugs.

Now, before you unleash your inner black-hat hacker on a Samsung Galaxy S8, there are some finer details you should be aware of. Firstly, the program isn’t just limited to the Korean manufacturer’s latest devices. It encompasses a range of handsets and tablets released from 2016 onwards (roughly 38 devices in total). In order to qualify for a cash prize, you’ll be required to identify an exploit that can compromise a handset without the need for a physical connection or third-party app. Bounties are also available for unearthing flaws in other Samsung services, including its Bixby digital assistant, Samsung account, Samsung Pay, and Samsung Pass.

The company already has a bug bounty program in place for its Smart TVs. And, earlier this year, it received a wake up call regarding its Tizen mobile OS, after a researcher discovered 40 unpatched exploits in its system.

Although bug bounties aren’t a cure-all for security, they’re viewed by some corporations as a positive strategy. Google, which forked out millions in rewards in January, claims they help it to make products safer. And, it says, they encourage the wider security research community to report flaws to the source, instead of exploiting them for their own gain.

Source: Samsung

Google adds US Latino art and culture to its online museum

From US presidents to the history of fashion over the course of three millennia, Google Arts & Culture has been using the latest tech to showcase and preserve vital aspects of history and culture for everyone to enjoy, regardless of where you live. Now, they have announced its latest virtual collection: Celebrating Latino culture within the US.

You can explore virtual 69 exhibits and 2,500 pieces of art that showcase culture, art, and influential figures throughout the history of Latinos in the US. Gina Rodriguez discusses being a Latina role model and the importance of representation, while one exhibit takes you through almost 50 years of the cultural institution Ballet Hispánico. You can also explore Diego Rivera’s Detroit murals or take a look at efforts to document queer Latinx history. All in all, it’s a comprehensive look at the influence of Latino, Latina, and Latinx culture on the US and how our experiences are intertwined.

The timing and subject of this exhibit aren’t very surprising (though it must have been in the works for some time, considering how comprehensive it is). The president announced on Tuesday that he would be ending deportation protections for Dreamers, people who arrived in the US as children and are eligible for work permits. While not all Dreamers are from Latino backgrounds, many are. It’s important to consider the vital contributions they’ve made to our culture as well as understand their own experiences in the US. Google’s made it easier for all of us to do that.

Source: Google (1), Google (2)

Blizzard will open its next eSports stadium in LA

Back in March, gaming titan Blizzard opened its first eSports arena — in Taipei. Sure, they probably chose Taiwan as a hub teams playing in Overwatch’s far-ranging Pacific championship, but the question remained: Where was the arena on Blizzard’s home turf? At long last, the company has revealed it’s been building one in the backyard of its headquarters. On October 7th, the Blizzard Arena Los Angeles will open its doors for its first event: The Overwatch Contenders’ first season playoffs.

The Blizzard Arena is nestled in the Burbank Studios, which housed The Tonight Show for 40 years. There, an hour’s drive north of its HQ in Irvine, California, the studio will host matches and tournaments that will be broadcast worldwide. Just like its Taipei counterpart, Blizzard’s flagship arena will have a shop full of merchandise that will rotate its stock according to the current competition.

After the Overwatch playoffs break in the stage, the Burbank arena will host the summer tournament for Hearthstone’s Championship Tour on October 13th, the third round of competition before the league’s grand finals in early 2018. The rest of the month will feature matches of other Blizzard titles Heroes of the Storm and World of Warcraft as players compete to qualify for those games’ championships at BlizzCon in early November.

Tickets for Overwatch Contenders Playoffs on October 7th and 8th go on sale here, while entry for the next weekend’s (October 13th to 15th) Hearthstone matches can be bought here.

Lyft cars with self-driving AI will hit San Francisco streets

Lyft has been expanding rapidly over the last few months, and they’ve been open about their interest in self-driving tech. While they’ve made it clear they will always have human drivers, they’ve partnered with various companies, such as Waymo, to explore autonomous ridesharing. And now they’ve taken another step in that direction: Lyft announced that it’s partnered with Drive.ai, a company that produces AI for self-driving cars, for a pilot program in the Bay Area.

Drive.ai’s focus is artificial intelligence for self-driving cars, which is cost-efficient and can be developed relatively quickly. Their aim, much like Lyft’s, is to use autonomous driving tech to improve quality of life. The partnership will put actual self-driving cars, powered by Drive.ai’s intelligent software, onto the streets of San Francisco. Drive.ai has already received a self-driving permit from the state of California, and all pilot program vehicles will have a trained driver in the car, just in case.

It’s impossible to know how self-driving technology will function if companies can’t test it on actual roads, so this pilot is an encouraging sign. In addition, when companies like Lyft partner with organizations developing this tech, they help push forward developments in (and regulations of, which is key — we still haven’t developed many of the laws we’ll need to govern autonomous vehicles) self-driving. It’s just another step forward for the technology as a whole.

Source: Lyft

Marvel and Star Wars films will be Disney streaming exclusives

Last month, we reported that Disney would be pulling its future titles from Netflix in favor of its own streaming service, scheduled for launch sometime in 2019. What wasn’t clear was the fate of Marvel and Star Wars titles — the media giant owns these brands, but the original release only specified that Disney and Pixar movies would be pulled. Netflix was reportedly in talks to keep the valuable movies on its service.

Apparently, those discussions have failed. Disney CEO Robert Iger has announced that movies from both Marvel Studios and Lucasfilm will be available exclusively on Disney’s streaming service. Presumably, this means that the last movie in the current Star Wars trilogy, Episode IX, along with Captain Marvel and Avengers 4, will only be available for streaming through Disney.

Speaking at a question-and-answer session at a conference, Iger also clarified some of the details of the streaming service. It will launch sometime in late 2019. Disney also plans on producing four or five original movies and TV shows per year for the subscription app. It’s not great news for those of us who bemoan the idea of paying for countless individual subscriptions, but considering how valuable both properties are to Disney, the move does make sense from a financial point of view.

Source: Variety

Inside the store that only accepts personal data as currency

On the internet, technology companies try to track your every move. The news story you liked on Facebook last week. Your Google searches. The videos you watch on YouTube. They’re all monitored by algorithms that want to serve you highly targeted ads. We don’t realise it, but the breadcrumb trail we leave online has value. Real, monetary value. To emphasise that point, cybersecurity firm Kaspersky Lab has been running a pop-up shop in London called The Data Dollar Store this week. Inside, you’ll find exclusive t-shirts, mugs and prints by prolific street artist Ben Eine. The catch? You can only buy them by giving up some personal data.

Opposite Old Street station, a smattering of Eine fans and curious, spontaneous shoppers waited in line. One by one they filed in and heard the store’s unusual rules: to acquire the mug, you must hand over three photos, or screenshots of your WhatsApp, SMS and email conversations, to Kaspersky. To buy the t-shirt, it has to be the last three photos on your Camera Roll — so you can’t be selective — or the last three messages on your phone. The original print, finally, forces you to hand over your phone. A member of staff will then poke around and select five photos, or three screenshots. You can barter with them, but ultimately the choice is theirs.

Street artist Ben Eine

There was a mixture of excitement and nervousness in the store. Some people were caught off guard and immediately started rummaging through their phones, checking photos and messages for anything that might cause embarrassment. Others looked smug — clearly, they had been told the rules beforehand and prepared their devices accordingly. “This is stuff we give away freely all the time,” Eine told me. “But when you’re actually asked to exchange this private information and walk away with something that does have monetary value, people are like, ‘Whoa! What is actually on my telephone? What are the messages that I’ve sent?’ It’s a little bit scary.”

I went through the process myself. Originally, I had planned to go for the print and fully expose my phone to the people outside the pop-up store. But I’m a scaredy-cat and quickly changed my mind, opting for the mug instead. I picked out some photos of a field hockey pitch, a classic car and a longboard my older brother owns. Naturally, I went for shots that didn’t show my face or anyone I knew. The momentary panic surprised me, because I don’t consider myself a man with many secrets. But in that store, I realised just how much data I would consider private on my phone.

Customers wait to have their phones inspected

The Data Dollar Store is, of course, a marketing stunt. An interesting thought experiment, but little more. Neither Eine nor Kaspersky are implying that this is the future of commerce. It’s just designed to make people think. “I want people to be worried about the information they’re giving away,” Eine says, “and then realise that they’re giving this information away all day, every day.” Information has value, he argues, and we should know what that value is. “People should be rewarded for allowing people to have that information,” he adds. “At the moment, nobody gets rewarded for giving away all of their personal information.”

Source: The Data Dollar Store

Google Drive on PC/Mac is dead, long live Backup and Sync

If you use Google Drive and/or Photos on PC and Mac, beware that both of those apps are being eliminated starting December 11th, 2017 and shut off completely in March of next year. Don’t mourn their loss too much, though. Both have already been replaced by a single app called Google Backup and Sync, which handles both photos and data at once. Business and enterprise users, meanwhile, are being shuffled to Drive File Stream, which is now in wide release after a limited launch in March.

Backup and Sync lets you, well, backup and sync photos and going files from PC folders, USB keys and SD cards to the cloud, so they’re available anywhere. The original Google Drive was not so convenient, as it required you to use two separate apps for files and photos. That could affect your storage space dramatically — if you upload images to Drive, it counts against your space, but if you upload them to Photos (using the “high,” not “original” setting), it doesn’t. At the same time, PC backups are now a more automated process.

Google also fully launched Drive File Stream, an app that performs roughly the same chores as Backup and Sync, but for enterprise and business users. It has more team-oriented features, like on-demand file streaming and access to Team Drives (for a comparison chart and other info, check here).

The loss of Drive on the desktop won’t affect your life much, unless you really liked the old Drive logo, which has been changed to something that resembles Microsoft’s OneDrive icon. Google also points out that you may soon see messages notifying you that “Drive for Mac/PC is going away,” presumably to join Google Reader and others in the great App Graveyard.

Via: Neowin

Source: Google G Suite

HP Omen 15 review (2017): A gaming laptop for everyone

HP went big with its Omen gaming machines last year, giving us some major VoodooPC flashbacks in the process. Unfortunately, the laptops felt like a downgrade from the slick Omen gaming notebook that HP launched in 2014. This year, the company decided to turn things around. The new Omen 15 fixes everything wrong with the previous model, thanks to a more stylish design and enough graphics power VR headsets. It doesn’t stand out from the increasingly crowded gaming laptop market, but it at least allows HP to stay in the fight.

Hardware

The last Omen notebook tried to downplay its gaming sensibility with a somewhat boring aesthetic. Perhaps that was in an effort to make it appeal to a more broad audience, but it’s not the sort of thing most gamers are looking for. The new Omen 15 has a more aggressive, “fighter jet” design that emphasizes sharp lines and angles, instead of friendlier rounded corners. You can tell it’s a gaming machine just by looking at it, which should make it more tempting to people who view their rigs like hot rods.

The Omen 15’s case is still made of plastic — not machined aluminum like the gorgeous 2014 model — but it’s mostly sturdy. The aesthetic is all black and crimson, with a touch of faux-carbon fiber for good measure. It’s an elegant design overall, but I’m not sure how well it would hold up over time. I managed to somehow scratch the top of the case in the midst of this review, and I honestly have no idea how that happened. There’s a bit of flex behind the Omen logo and the display as well, which makes me wonder how safe it would be if I were to stuff it into a laptop bag.

At 5.68 pounds, it’s on the lighter end for full-fledged gaming laptops. You definitely won’t mistake the Omen 15 for an ultraportable, but it’s easy to carry around. Additionally, HP applied NVIDIA’s Max-Q design philosophy, which is one reason why it’s so portable. The Omen 15 doesn’t take Max-Q as far as ASUS’ Zephyrus laptop, though, which comes in under five pounds and packs in more powerful hardware.

As for ports, the Omen 15 includes three USB 3.0 connections, a USB-C socket with optional Thunderbolt connectivity, an SD card reader and an Ethernet jack. It also has full-sized HDMI and Mini DisplayPort connections for video output. If you want to upgrade later on, you can also remove the bottom of the laptop to swap out its SSD, hard drive and RAM. In theory, at least — some of the tiny screws just wouldn’t budge when I tried to open the case. Even worse, they ended up getting stripped, which means a phillips-head screwdriver can’t grip them anymore.

Keyboard and trackpad

To give the laptop more of a premium feel, HP draped a layer of aluminum around the keyboard and trackpad, both of which are also significantly improved over last year. The keyboard feels great to type on, with a decent amount of travel. And it’s also very responsive for games — I felt just as capable maneuvering through Overwatch matches as I do on my desktop keyboard.

Sure, it’s not mechanical, but you have to step up to far more expensive gaming laptops for that (e.g., HP’s huge Omen X). There’s a full number pad on the right side of the keyboard, as well as a crimson backlight for when you’re gaming in the dark. HP claims it offers “26-key rollover anti-ghosting,” which means it can accept that many key commands at once without mistaking any inputs. That’s particularly useful for fast typists, and gamers who need to hit a plenty of keys often.

The Omen 15’s touchpad is smooth and accurate for all of your productivity needs, and its two buttons are also very responsive. While you’ll still need a decent mouse for playing most games, I particularly appreciated the touchpad. Plenty of Windows machines tend to skimp on them, especially gaming laptops.

Display and sound

The Omen 15’s 15.6-inch display is available in in 4K, or 1080p with a fast 120Hz refresh rate. You can also choose from G-Sync-compatible screens for NVIDIA GPUs, and Freesync displays for AMD chips. I tested the 4K G-Sync version, which was bright, colorful and responsive enough for fast-paced games. The screen was also great for movies and TV shows, but that’s a less notable achievement.

I didn’t see much point in having such a high resolution, though, since the Omen isn’t powerful enough to play games well in 4K. Most gamers would be better off with the 1080p screen, since its speedy refresh rate would let you see up to 120 frames per second. That adds up to a much smoother gaming experience overall.

The Omen 15’s speakers were also impressive, delivering a surprising amount of volume and detail for laptop speakers. Since they sit toward the front of the laptop, it’s almost as if the sound is coming toward you, which makes for much natural-sounding audio. Obviously, they’re no match for a decent set of gaming headphones or external speakers, but it’s nice to have some solid built-in sound.

Performance and battery life

The Omen 15 is powered by Intel’s i7-7700HQ CPU and your choice of NVIDIA’s GTX 1050, 1050Ti or 1060 graphics cards. The lowest-end model features AMD’s Radeon RX550 GPU, if you’re aiming to save a few bucks. The laptop also packs in between 8GB and 16GB of RAM, and you can choose between a variety of SSD options and larger 2.5-inch hard drives for storing all your games.

Overall, it has much more horsepower than last year’s Omen. If you want to dabble in VR, though, you’ll have to step up to the GTX 1060 version to run the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive. While every Omen 15 model has enough USB ports to support those headsets and their accompanying sensors, you need the extra bit of power from the GTX 1060 to make sure your games run smoothly. VR isn’t like typical gaming; a few dropped frames could easily make you sick.

Even though it’s not nearly as beefy as the ASUS Zephyrus, the Omen 15 still offers enough power to reach a solid 60 FPS in most modern games running at 1080p. I clocked in around 120 FPS in Overwatch on high graphical settings, and between 60 and 70 FPS in The Witcher 3 and Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice. Thanks to the G-Sync screen, I also didn’t notice any screen tearing once the frame rate started creeping up.

Devindra Hardawar/Engadget

As I mentioned before, the Omen 15 isn’t ideal for 4K gaming. The Witcher 3 ran at just 20 FPS at that resolution with medium graphics settings. Unfortunately, the Omen’s monitor doesn’t support 1,440p (2,560 by 1,440 pixels), which is my ideal gaming resolution between 1080p and 4K. Honestly, though, with a display this size it’d be tough to tell the difference between that and 1080p. The important thing about the Omen 15? Everything I threw at it looked and played great, as long as I stuck with 1080p.

HP also did a great job of minimizing heat. The Omen’s GPU reached around 72C at full load in my air conditioned office, while the CPU hovered around 80C. I wouldn’t recommend using it on your lap while you’re gaming, but the Omen never got too hot to touch either. Partially, the sensible temperatures are due to a more efficient fan design, which HP claims pushes around 20 percent more airflow at full speed.

The company also implemented the Max Q version of NVIDIA’s GTX 1060, which is clocked a bit slower than the standard model. But because of that, it’s also a more power-efficient GPU. The GTX 1060 version of the Omen 15 fits in three heat pipes, compared to just two from last year’s model. When playing a demanding game, the laptop can get noticeably loud, but that’s not a huge issue if you’re wearing headphones.

Unfortunately, the Omen is a disappointment when it comes to battery life. In our test, which involves looping an HD video, it lasted only two and a half hours with battery-saving settings turned off. That puts it 40 minutes ahead of the ASUS Zephyrus, but you wouldn’t want to do any gaming on either machine without being plugged in. Still, it’s more useful for short bursts of productivity work on battery than the ASUS machine.

Pricing and the competition

The HP Omen 15 starts at $1,000 with AMD’s Radeon RX550, but you’ll have to shell out $1,300 if you want NVIDIA’s GTX 1050. The top-end version with the GTX 1060, meanwhile, goes for around $1,659. The price can get higher depending on how much storage you stuff in.

Mostly, HP is targeting Dell’s Alienware 15 lineup, which begins at $1,200. Those machines weigh a few pounds more, and don’t have the benefit of Max Q design, but they also have room to fit in more powerful GPUs, like NVIDIA’s GTX 1070 and 1080. There’s also Dell’s Inspiron 7000, which starts at $1,000, but has a much more subdued design.

And if money is no object, and you want to see just how far NVIDIA’s Max Q design philosophy can go, check out ASUS’s ROG Zephyrus. Just be prepared to shell out at least $2,300 for the privilege of having the thinnest gaming laptop around.

Wrap-up

The best thing about the Omen 15? It’s clear that HP learned from its mistakes. This year’s model looks great, offers more power, and actually has a good keyboard and trackpad. While hardcore gamers might want to hold out for the even more powerful Omen X, the Omen 15 should satisfy everyone else.

Drone pilots are getting their own weather forecasts

Whether you think drones are super-great or want to shoot them out of the sky, they’ve become increasingly vital for missions like crop spraying, inspection and filming. Yet, it’s impossible for operators to get the kind of detailed weather info that airplane pilots have because UAVs generally fly at much lower altitudes. Now, a company called Earth Networks is unveiling Sferic DroneFlight, “hyperlocal, low-altitude weather weather forecasting for drone operators.

Earth Networks will deliver detailed regional forecasts from 10 to 400 feet of altitude (in 10 foot increments) at any location in the world. You’ll see hourly forecasts for wind speed and direction up to six days ahead of time, making it easier to plan tricky missions. The system is powered by Global Weather Corporation, which has 10,000 weather sensors and 1,500 lightning sensors in 90 countries.

Drone-makers like DJI are constantly adding planning and preventive features like GPS geo-fencing to keep your drone out of restricted areas. It seems feasible that current winds and other data could also be sent directly to drones or pre-flight apps, so their systems can better calculate range, trajectory and other flight parameters. Pilots and researchers will also be able to use the data to better identify disruptive conditions and do post-mortems after drone accidents, Earth Networks says.

No system can predict wind speed and direction at, say, precisely 70 feet, four days and six hours from now. However, Earth Networks will test the network at the University of Maryland’s unmanned aircraft systems test site to make it as accurate as possible. Once its running well, it could smooth the acceptance of drones by the public and regulators like the FAA, Earth Networks believes. “Weather intelligence will be a key technology to enable longer and beyond line of sight missions,” said CMO Anuj Agrawal.

Source: Earth Networks

Pebble Founder Launches Kickstarter for iPhone 7/AirPods Battery Case ‘PodCase’

After Pebble was acquired by Fitbit late last year, Pebble said that its hardware devices would continue to function as normal for at least another year, with any future support for its services heading into 2018 unclear. Today, Pebble founder Eric Migicovsky has revealed his next project, and it’s a Kickstarter for a case aimed at the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus that also charges AirPods, called “PodCase” (via Engadget).

The Kickstarter page describes the case as a “slim case” for carrying and charging both the iPhone and AirPods, thanks to a 2500 mAh battery. That’ll provide up to one full charge for the iPhone 7 (with a 1,960 mAh battery), although not quite enough for a full charge of the iPhone 7 Plus (with a 2,900 mAh battery). That’s also equivalent to “up to 40 AirPod charges,” according to the PodCase’s crowdfunding page.

Keeping track of your AirPod charging case is a chore. It’s one more gadget to misplace, one more item to remember when you run out the door, and one more lump of plastic in your pocket. Drop it into your bag or purse and you might as well call search and rescue! Storing your AirPods with your phone seemed only natural to us.

Charging an extra device every night is a pain. No one likes a mess of cables on their night stand, and remembering to charge your AirPods during the day isn’t a great solution either. You plug your phone in every night anyway–why not charge your AirPods and your iPhone together? That’s exactly what PodCase does.

The case itself is charged through USB-C, so those with the newest MacBook models will be able to fuel up PodCase through their existing chargers. A design for the iPhone 8 is said to be coming soon, but the company is waiting for the September 12 Apple event to confirm the accessory’s design.

PodCase will retail for $99, but early bird Kickstarter backers will be able to buy the accessory for $79. The PodCase team also includes Avegant co-founder Allan Evans and Pebble industrial designer Steve Johns. Check out the PodCase Kickstarter page here for more information on the accessory, including a video introduction by Migicovsky.

The Kickstarter’s goal is $300,015 in 30 days, and the PodCase’s shipping date is estimated for February 2018.

Tag: AirPods
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