Snap CEO: Spectacles sales are ‘over 150,000 units’

Now that the hype around Snap’s Spectacles has died down, there is the question of how many units the company actually sold. In a conversation today at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit, CEO Evan Spiegel revealed that sales of its camera-equipped sunglasses had topped 150,000 — more than the 100,000 units he claims the company expected and more than the iPod sold in its first year.

It’s hard to tell if that’s spin or a sign that Snap has a real future in hardware, but Spiegel is pushing forward, as he told Walter Isaacson “If you look at the Snapchat camera, layering this expression on top of your experience encourages anyone anywhere to be creative.” Of the company’s IPO and recently slumping stock price he said: “I think one of the things we’ve been going through this year is how to communicate the Snap story.”

Source: Vanity Fair, CNBC

Can democracy be digitized? These vets at Polco say yes.

If you’ve never been to a city council meeting, consider yourself lucky. A city council meeting in America is often just an opportunity for the same angry citizens to rant about whatever their hot-button issue is this week. Political operatives know them as “the squeaky wheel challenge,” while polling professionals talk about the “STP problem,” otherwise known as the “the same ten people problem.”

But now a startup in Madison, Wisconsin wants to break this dysfunctional cycle of civic engagement by offering a new communication platform that gives citizens a straightforward way to voice their opinions and ideas to elected officials and policy makers. On the flip side, it helps cities, counties, nonprofits and school districts conduct verified policy polling with powerful data visualization tools to help them find the best ways to move forward.

The company is called Polco, a shortening of the concept “Political Compass.” The platform is the brainchild of two veterans of military and public service who have assembled an A-team of economists, engineers, policy experts and entrepreneurs to bring their concept to the masses.

Admittedly, co-founders Alex Pedersen and Nick Mastronardi have extraordinary backgrounds for two guys entering the wild-west world of startups.

“One of the bizarre effects is that so much is going on at the federal and state level that it’s almost like people feel like we’re an anchor to something that is tangible and controllable.”

Prior to starting Polco, Mastronardi was a Senior Economist at Amazon and a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers at the White House. That was after he earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin and served as an officer in the U.S. Air Force for more than a decade. Meanwhile, Pedersen spent more than seven years in the Air Force before working as a Strategy and Operations analyst at Google. He earned his Master’s Degree in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School. These are not typical backgrounds for startup entrepreneurs.

“We served, so public policy is important to what we do,” Mastronardi told Digital Trends. “It’s why we joined the military. It’s a matter of civic duty. We also really love technology based on where we chose to work after leaving the military. When the opportunity presented itself to work at the intersection of the two, we couldn’t resist.”

“The whole idea is to help people better navigate the public policies that are on the table and what they actually mean,” Pedersen agrees. “It’s to help people communicate in a civil way. It’s the whole point.”

How Polco Works

Here’s the deal about Polco: it succeeds in providing real time or aggregated feedback to policy makers from real people in a way that other platforms simply cannot.

“We looked at it through a couple of iterations,” Pedersen said. “People are using Twitter, Facebook, Survey Monkey and Gallup polls , all for roughly the same applications. There are huge trade-offs with all of them. We were trying to find the true intersection between those applications, carve out that space, and make it our own thing.”

Fundamentally, it’s a polling and data analysis platform. When Bryant, Texas officials wanted to know if its citizens would support a fee of $3.18 per month for curbside recycling, they turned to Polco. When Fayetteville, Georgia officials wanted to know what its citizens thought about Starbucks getting a liquor license, they turned to Polco. Where normally a few “squeaky wheels” at a city council meeting would have controlled the conversation, Polco’s operatives discovered the issue had a 90 percent approval rate.

The platform is also fluid enough to field lots of different kinds of questions, ranging from pulse questions (standardized, recurring questions to track sentiment over time) to open discussions, yes/no polling, and formal petitions.

But here’s where Polco gets interesting. The company registers constituents by mapping them to their own voter registrations. While all data is anonymized during the analyses process, Polco can guarantee that its users are real voters, as opposed to disgruntled people who sign up ten times to take the same poll. Polco voters are allowed to vote exactly once on any given issue, and offer a single comment that isn’t directed at any other user. The platform has literally eliminated the ability to have bitter back-and-forth arguments that characterize other social media platforms. Once the user has voted, they can only see anonymized comments. And then the platform shifts again.

“Like reddit, they can upvote the strongest arguments for the things that they voted on,” Pedersen said. “How that keeps things civil is that someone new to a question can not only see the official background material, but they can also see the strongest reasons for and against any given issue. We see a lot less trolling and a lot more constructive criticism.”

A Local Solution Serving Many Constituencies

It’s been an interesting road for the founders of Polco, who started in San Francisco before joining the Seed Sumo accelerator in Bryan, Texas for a bit and then landing at the Madworks accelerator  in Madison’s University research park. In its new home in the Midwest, Polco has already won the city’s third annual “Pressure Cooker” contest from the Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce as well as the “People’s Choice” award at the Wisconsin Innovation Awards.

“Some people are calling the rust belt the new civic engagement belt,” Mastronardi said. “We’re excited to be in the heartland. There are very blue areas and very red areas here but everyone is very focused on policy, rather than labels. These cities we work with reflect what our product is designed to do, which is to bring people together to discuss important policy issues facing them and their cities and their state.”

Polco is already live or ready to launch in 26 municipalities across the nation, and they expect to have approximately 50 commitments by October 1. In addition to an initial seed round of funding of around $900,000, the Polco team recently rolled out a Kickstarter campaign that gained the company a lot of attention during this year’s heated political news cycle.

While the campaign was unsuccessful in raising its $35,000 goal, it did catch the attention of hundreds of backers and nearly $10,000 in pledges. To a degree, it was also a way for the company to measure the interest in Polco and potentially have citizens subsidize or sponsor the platform in their own community.

A city council meeting in America is often just an opportunity for the same angry citizens to rant about whatever their hot-button issue is this week.

The next step in terms of financing is far more ambitious: a Series A venture capital round is kicking off in September with a goal of $1.5 to 2 million.

The long-term financial model is sound, both ethically and financially. Polco is always free for individual citizens, while the company charges city governments and other organizations an affordable subscription fee with scalable rates base on city population or other demographic units, starting at around $500 monthly.

Asked if the controversial political atmosphere in the United States has affected how Polco operates, Mastronardi said, “Well, the environment has been good for business.”

Alex added that the events happening at the national level are having a profound impact on what happens at the local level.

“One of the bizarre effects is that so much is going on at the federal and state levels—and because our focus is primarily local—it’s almost like people feel we’re an anchor to something that is tangible and controllable,” Pedersen said.

“In that sense, our focus remains steady, but I think the idea resonates with people even more than before because there are so many unknowns out there right now. When we’re talking about things that affect people a mile away from you instead of in Washington, D.C., it becomes more attractive to have a voice at the local level.”

“Some of the smallest towns are really interesting because the issues they’re facing are very different than those in a municipality with 100,000 citizens, or 500,000 citizens,” Mastronardi said. “Something as simple as putting up a stop sign can be a really contentious issue.”

Giving Voice to Everyone in the Community

An interesting side effect to developing Polco has been discovering just who it appeals to. Pederson and Mastronardi have crisscrossed the nation educating communities, organizations, school districts and other potential clients.

“Our platform represents different things to different groups,” Pedersen said. “In terms of flexibility, anyone who can navigate social media can use Polco.”

That means for citizens, it’s simply a civic engagement platform—a way to learn what’s going on and have a voice that gets heard. For local governments, it’s a way to collect useful and verified data from most citizens in the community whose sentiments may balance out the vocal few at city council meetings. To tech investors, it’s a unique social media platform and a new way to collect actionable data. Finally, journalists can use the platform’s backend to test whether the data collected by Polco on any given issue is really valid or properly reflects the community demographics.

Where the founders almost breeze over their accomplishments is that the Polco platform is portable across mobile and static platforms, meaning it can be embedded into nearly any social communication platform, including a city’s website, Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn accounts.

“Cities like to have traffic driving to their websites, so it made sense to us that a citizen could respond on those platforms,” Pedersen said. “In fact, one of our first steps with a potential partner is to evaluate where their engagement with their constituents happens.”

“Cities like to have traffic driving to their websites, so it made sense to us that a citizen could respond on those platforms.”

“Who are they hearing from? Where is it coming from? Is it representative of the community? Once we figure out that a city has a touch point with 20, 30, 40 percent more of their community than they think, we can formulate an outreach plan to use Polco going forward.”

Polco offers a way to capture underrepresented voices and respond in real time.

“For the first time, we can quantify a gap in communication,” Mastronardi said. “Before, if it’s a free-form town hall or an ambiguous survey, you’re not characterizing who’s participating, and by extension, you’re not characterizing who is not participating. In real time, a city or a county can see if they’re getting real participating from all districts, and if not, they can refocus their outreach to ensure that they are reaching the underrepresented in their community. We can do the same thing by age, geography, or gender. It’s a way to find these missing voices and give voice to people who haven’t been part of the process before.”

Finding a Safe Space

In a political season that has seen some United States representatives have refused to face their constituents, the question emerges whether Polco might have a solution. The answer right now is uncertain, but the company has started some experiments to test integrating Polco’s verified response system with livestreaming platforms that might provide a safe space interface between a town hall, a politician’s livestream, and their constituencies in real time.

What happens when you digitize democracy? No one’s quite sure yet, but it promises to be interesting to watch Polco try to find out.

Google Pixelbook specs revealed less than 24 hours before announcement

The Pixelbook will come with an Intel Core i5 CPU, 12.3-inch display, and three memory configurations. Also, what the hell are Google Clips?

As most of you know, we’re just a matter of hours away from Google’s big press event tomorrow. The Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL will likely be the stars of the show, but alongside them and the Google Home Mini, we’re also expecting to see the new Pixelbook laptop/tablet hybrid. The Pixelbook initially broke cover a couple of weeks ago, but thanks to a discovery from 9to5Google, a few of the Pixelbook’s specifications have been confirmed.

In a reseller listing from Synnex, the Pixelbook is listed as featuring an Intel Core i5 processor and storage configurations of 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB. All three of these models will come equipped with that i5 chipset, but it’s not clear at this time if there will be any difference in clock speed or RAM count.

Along with this, the listing also reveals that the Pixelbook will come equipped with a 12.3-inch display. There’s no word on resolution, but it’s worth noting that this is noticeably smaller than the 12.85-inch display that was found on the two generations of the Chromebook Pixel. Both Chromebook Pixels also featured a resolution of 2560 x 1700 along with a 3:2 aspect ratio, and we wouldn’t be surprised to see a similar setup on the Pixelbook tomorrow.

Pixelbook is shaping up to be the premium laptop that Chrome OS deserves.

The Pixelbook should come with a starting price of $1199 for the 128GB model and go up to as much as $1749 if you opt for 512GB of storage. Google will also be selling a Pixelbook Pen for $99, and from what we know so far, this should work similarly to what’s found with the Samsung Chromebook Plus and Pro.

Lastly, this reseller listing also mentions a mysterious product that’s simply referred to as “Google Clips.” Google Clips is categorized in the listing as a “computer accessory”, but beyond that, we have no idea what to expect.

Yes, believe it or not, there might actually be something left to surprise us tomorrow.

Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL

• Google Pixel 2 + Pixel 2 XL: Everything we know so far
• Our 2016 Pixel reviews
• Join our Pixel 2 forums

Allo for web gains support for Firefox, Opera, and iOS app

All for web is ditching its exclusivity to Chrome and Android by expanding to Firefox, Opera, and its iOS app.

After nearly a year of patiently waiting, Google released a web-based desktop client for Allo in August in the form of “Allo for web.” Allo for web was only supported on Google Chrome upon its release, but today, the service can now be used with Firefox and Opera web browsers.

The announcement came from Amit Fulay (Head of Product for Google Allo and Duo) on Twitter this morning, and using Allo for web on Firefox or Opera will work exactly the same as it has been on Chrome for almost two months.

Simply open the Allo app on your phone and then select “Allo for web” from the hamburger menu on the left. This will prompt you to scan a QR code that’s displayed on your computer screen with your phone, and once this is done, you’ll be able to carry on all of your Allo conversations right on your desktop.

Allo for web now supports iOS, Firefox & Opera. Rolling out today, update to the latest build and give it a try https://t.co/OPn6Q5hdkg

— Amit Fulay (@amitfulay) October 3, 2017

In addition to Allo for web now supporting Firefox and Opera, Fulay also announced that iOS users can finally take advantage of Allo for web as well. The process should work in the same manner as it does on Android, and it’s nice to see Google continually expand Allo’s reach to as many people and platforms as possible.

Now, about SMS support…

Top Allo features you need to know

Supreme Court: Samsung’s in-box warranty can’t kill lawsuit

Samsung can’t force a closed-door proceeding to settle a lawsuit filed by a customer who felt misled about the capabilities of his Galaxy S4, the Supreme Court has ruled. The Korean tech giant has been trying to squash the lawsuit since it was filed, arguing that any customer who buys the S4 agrees to private arbitration, since it’s a clause in its warranty booklet. The plaintiff, Daniel Norcia, fought back by pointing out that he bought the device from a Verizon store, where an employee set it up for him. He said he left the phone’s box and warranty booklet in the store.

Lower courts previously agreed with Norcia that a clause in a warranty booklet isn’t enough to inform consumers that they’re agreeing to private arbitration proceedings in case situations arise. Now, Norcia has scored what Consumerist calls a “rare win,” as the Supreme Court doesn’t always agree with the lower courts’ decisions or side with a customer. As the publication said, by allowing the lawsuit to move forward, the Supreme Court is giving Norcia the chance to hold the company accountable in public. We’ll also get to find out what the final outcome of the case is.

Source: Consumerist, Supreme Court (PDF), Reuters

Allo web chat now works in browsers other than Chrome

When Google brought its Allo chat app to the web, it only supported Chrome. That partly defeats the point of an app-independent client, doesn’t it? Thankfully, Google agrees. It just expanded Allo’s web support to get it running on Firefox, Opera and iOS devices (including Chrome and Safari). You do have to start by scanning a QR code on the desktop using your phone, which is more than a little unwieldy, but this does mean you don’t have to live within Google’s software ecosystem just to avoid a native app. No, this probably won’t get you to ditch Hangouts or another messaging app, but it does open the door to those who otherwise wouldn’t give it a shot.

Via: Android Police

Source: Google, Amit Fulay (Twitter)

Puff, Puff, recharge. E-cigarettes are booming, and China is ground zero

I walk into the Shenzhen Convention and Exhibition Center and I’m blasted by wafts of vapor. So are 36,000 other people.

A woman waves emissions away from her face as one does secondhand smoke. Disc-jockeys play tunes. Models in jean shorts, cropped shirts, and heels push marketing materials. Tattoo companies offer temporary ink. Actors don Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse costumes. A clown makes animal balloons.

At this year’s three-day IECIE eCig Expo, 1,000 companies from China, Germany, Japan, Malaysia, Russia, U.K., and the U.S. exhibit e-cigarettes and paraphernalia, and the biggest takeaway is the astonishing versatility on display: heating coils, microprocessors, power inductors, tube casings, rechargeable batteries, and storage boxes. Attendees puff away on samples, billowing 10-foot-long clouds.

Battery-powered e-cigarettes take various forms: standard rectangle, e-pens, e-lipstick, e-pipes, e-cigars, e-hookahs. They vaporize inhalable nicotine solutions known as e-liquids, e-juices, or oils, which are heated sans combustion, rendering them smokeless. Vaporizer cartridges accommodate dry herbs, tobacco leaves, and marijuana.

Joshua Bateman/Digital Trends

Joshua Bateman/Digital Trends

Some e-cigarettes are simple and affordable. Others are smart devices with touchscreen multilanguage menus, firmware upgrades, and power bank options. Expensive pieces are art, made with stainless steel, zinc alloy, glass, leather, and wood accent panels. Suppliers advertise uptake efficiency, compactness, versatility, customization, and ergonomic designs.

Beijing pharmacist Han Li invented e-cigarettes in 2003 and roughly nine-tenths of global production occurs in China, mostly in Shenzhen’s industrial Bao’an District, two hours outside the city center. In Bao’an, Elego Technology Company, an e-cigarette exporter, sits nestled between hundreds of manufacturers, component suppliers, and warehouses.

Attendees puff away on samples, billowing 10-foot-long clouds.

Wearing jeans, sneakers, and a black Elego T-shirt that reads “Best Vape Wholesalers,” sales representative Daisy Qiu, tells me e-cigarette aficionados clamor for the latest releases. “It is like a new fashion,” she said. “Small innovations push the market.” Team colors for the NFL Raiders, black and silver, are best-sellers.

Around the office, 20-somethings work diligently. Empty shelves and moving boxes are harbingers that the company is relocating. With revenues growing 25 percent annually and expected headcount to reach 200 by year’s end, Elego needs more space.

On one disk sit dozens of e-cigarettes waiting to be tested. As a third-party agent, Elego filters out subpar products. The company’s reps visit factories to review production processes, cleanliness, and certifications.

Sales manager Michael Li said that a few inferior batteries and user error spawned exploding e-cigarettes years ago. “But now, it never happens because quality improved,” he told Digital Trends. “The competition is very strong. So each manufacturer will try their best.”

Joshua Bateman/Digital Trends

E-liquids contain nicotine, water, and propylene glycol, or vegetable glycerin. Flavors include standards like menthol and drip tobacco, as well as an immense assortment that reads like a stroll down the snack aisle: cookie, donut, ice-cream, vanilla custard, caramel, pretzel, bubble gum, mint, pina colada, wine, cola, root beer, black tea, and energy drink. Fruity varieties are punch, apple, banana, orange, peach, grape, cherry, strawberry, watermelon, pineapple, pomegranate, lychee, and kiwi. Companies highlight the flavors’ sweetness, freshness, and cleanliness.

Elego exports e-cigarettes from China, but not e-liquids. “American liquids are the most popular,” Li said.

Driven by North America and Europe, the global e-cigarette market is forecast to grow 17 percent annually, reaching $27.7 billion by 2022. Elego exports to more than 60 countries. Americans prefer larger, higher wattage e-cigarettes with heftier vapor plumes. Brits like smaller models, the French even slimmer.

E-cigarettes have barely dented the $770 billion tobacco industry, but Li thinks they could steal 30 percent market share in the upcoming decades. “New stuff, it takes time to get people to accept it,” he said.

Detecting opportunities, electronics and biotechnology conglomerates have entered the market. For example, iPhone manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group manufactures vape pods. Big Tobacco — British American Tobacco, R.J. Reynolds, Altria, Philip Morris International, and Imperial Tobacco — is also participating.

The Chinese smoke 45 percent of the world’s cigarettes, but only a sliver of those 316 million smokers use e-cigarettes. Li said Chinese people are traditional and reluctant to try alien things. Few have ever heard of e-cigarettes. He believes youth will propel acceptance, however.

Joshua Bateman/Digital Trends

Joshua Bateman/Digital Trends

“Young people, they like new stuff,” he said. “But old people, they will stay old.”

Tobacco costs encourage Westerners, but not Chinese, to embrace e-cigarettes. Unlike China, where packs of smokes can be had for less than $2 each, they may exceed $10 a pack in the U.S. and U.K., spurring the need for substitutes. Thus, Chinese adopters are the wealthy, not mass market.

Smoking is also social. When lighting up, Chinese typically offer cigarettes to others. E-cigarettes sever this connection. “This is a really big problem,” Li said.

If the government supports it, it will grow very fast. If not, we have to figure that out

Policymakers also influence market development. Because China’s e-cigarette consumption market is immaterial, officials haven’t meddled. If it cannibalizes tobacco consumption, however, additional taxes and controls could be levied. State-owned enterprise China National Tobacco Corporation is a near monopoly, manufacturing 98 percent of the tobacco products in China, throwing off approximately $150 billion annually in tax revenues.

In America, the Food and Drug Administration began regulating e-cigarettes last year and acknowledged they have both “potential benefits and risks.”

“If the government supports it, it will grow very fast. If not, we have to figure that out,” Li said.

To oust unscrupulous manufacturers, Li welcomes stronger regulations in the fragmented, unchecked industry. Assorted paints, coatings, and chemicals are used in production, which can contaminate the aerosol. Studies have found worrying levels of nickel, chromium, and diethylene glycol – an antifreeze ingredient – which can infiltrate users’ lungs.

Joshua Bateman/Digital Trends

Although long-term studies are lacking, e-cigarette advocates market them as healthier alternatives to smoking. This theory is centered on e-cigarettes vaporizing solutions, which don’t burn tobacco like cigarettes do. According to a Public Health England report, e-cigarettes are about 95 percent less harmful than ordinary cigarettes. More than 480,000 Americans dying from smoke every year.

“People work so hard. Their health is not good. So, they need some stuff to cure smoking,” Li said.

One expo attendee remained unconvinced, however. In a seating area, a solitary used cigarette butt lay on the floor.

Elsewhere, other researchers have raised misgivings. Dr. Shan-shan Chung, assistant professor at Hong Kong Baptist University, studied e-cigarettes on behalf of the Hong Kong Council on Smoking and Health. Chung said e-cigarettes present different risks than tobacco products, invalidating direct comparisons.

Chung found trace nicotine in e-cigarettes, but it poses less risk than it does in traditional cigarettes. As battery-powered electronics, though, e-cigarettes contain endocrine-disrupting polybrominated diphenyl (PBDE) and formaldehyde, a carcinogen, neither of which is present in cigarettes. Amounts vary greatly by manufacturer.

Thus, when using a questionable product, “[a user’s] health is very much in danger because he or she is absorbing one proven carcinogen and one developmental toxicant,” Chung told Digital Trends.

For smokers contemplating switching, she said, “Neither smoking nor vaping is advisable. Just quit because there is no evidence showing any one is better than the other.”

Others fret over nonsmokers vaping, notably youth. After increasing 900 percent annually between 2011 and 2015, more U.S. high schoolers now use e-cigarettes than traditional tobacco products.

In a report, former U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy called youth usage “a major public health concern.” Murthy wrote, “The brain of youth and young adults is more vulnerable to the negative consequences of nicotine exposure. The effects include addiction, priming for use of other addictive substances, reduced impulse control, deficits in attention and cognition, and mood disorders.”

The report conceded, however, that, “Gaps in scientific evidence do exist,” and that “these products and their patterns of use continue to change quickly.”

As governments and researchers investigate, the industry continues to mushroom. On stage at the exhibition, a boy band in white T-shirts rapped. One vaped away as another bellowed in his best Eminem impression, “Zuò hěn dàde shēngyì!” (“Do a lot of business!”)

While recognizing market maturation will take time, Li said of the industry, “It’s really a bright future.”

Joshua Bateman is based in Greater China. He can be reached @joshdbateman.

All 3 billion Yahoo users were compromised in 2013 data breach, the largest ever

Why it matters to you

Even if you’ve never really used your Yahoo account, if you had one at any time before 2013, your personal information was compromised in a 2013 breach. It’s time to change those passwords again.

pIn December 2016, Yahoo disclosed that its servers were hacked way back in 2013, compromising the sensitive personal data of around 1 billion users. On Tuesday, Yahoo’s new parent company, Verizon, confirmed that the initial estimate was a bit low — in fact, all Yahoo accounts were compromised in the 2013 hack. That’s 3 billion users, making it the largest data breach in history.

“Subsequent to Yahoo’s acquisition by Verizon, and during integration, the company recently obtained new intelligence and now believes, following an investigation with the assistance of outside forensic experts, that all Yahoo user accounts were affected by the August 2013 theft,” reads a statement from Verizon subsidiary Oath.

If you ever had a Yahoo account prior to 2013, now would be a good time to resecure all of your existing online accounts — particularly any that may have had contact with your Yahoo account. The security precautions Yahoo took in the aftermath of the original hack might protect current Yahoo users.

“In 2016, Yahoo took action to protect all accounts, including directly notifying impacted users identified at the time, requiring password changes, and invalidating unencrypted security questions and answers so that they could not be used to access an account. Yahoo also notified users via a notice on its website,” Oath’s statement says.

The original breach shook confidence in Yahoo’s ability to protect its users personal information, not only because of the scope of the data breach but because of how long it took for Yahoo to disclose that its users’ information had been compromised.

As a reminder, the original data breach in 2013 potentially exposed names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, hashed passwords, as well as security questions and answers. Naturally, such a glut of personal information could be used in a variety of ways, not least of which would be to access other online accounts.

Yahoo was quick to point out what information wasn’t compromised, however.

“The investigation indicates that the information that was stolen did not include passwords in clear text, payment card data, or bank account information. Payment card data and bank account information are not stored in the system the company believes was affected,” the statement reads.

Even though payment data and bank account information wasn’t leaked, it could very well have been accessed with the treasure trove of personal information hackers successfully made off with. So it bears repeating, if you’ve ever had a Yahoo account, it’s time to change all your passwords. Again.

If you don’t already have one, now would be a good time to look into a password manager.

Marvel joins Madefire’s digital comic book collection

Madefire’s digital comic book platform is a good way to spice up stories that you may have read countless times, but its catalog has always had a conspicuous gap: namely, there were no Marvel comics. That ends today. Madefire has added Marvel to its collection, giving you the likes of The Avengers, Black Panther and X-Men through its Android, iOS, Windows and TV apps. There’s no mention of taking advantage of Madefire’s pseudo-3D Motion Book format, but having access is clearly the big deal here. You don’t have to switch apps when you’re ready to jump from Wonder Woman to Squirrel Girl.

We’d add that this also injects some competition into digital comics. Not surprisingly, Amazon’s Comixology is the elephant in the room — this gives you a recognizable alternative that includes a healthy mix of majors and indies like DC, IDW and Valiant. It may be difficult to jump ship if you already have a huge library elsewhere, but at least you have a viable choice.

Source: Madefire

Galaxy Note 8 and iPhone 8 Plus tie for top spot in camera test

Like it or not, DxOMark is currently the go-to tester for smartphone camera quality. Companies will even base their marketing around its scores. As such, it’s a big deal when the outfit declares a new winner… and it just declared two. DxOMark has given Samsung’s Galaxy Note 8 an overall score of 94, putting it in a tie for the lead with the iPhone 8 Plus. No, that’s not going to trigger endless fan wars, is it? Of course, diving into the scores reveals that the devices reached their scores through different means.

The Note 8’s advantages chiefly come through its secondary camera, relatively noiseless low-light photography and lightning-quick autofocus. Of the two, Samsung’s phone is the one you’d want for portraits or capturing a fast-moving scene. The iPhone, on the other hand, has exceptional high dynamic range performance, accurate face exposure and great overall video performance, particularly with stabilization. And both have their weak points, as you might imagine. The Note 8 has a fairly limited dynamic range that results in lost detail in extreme situations, and has white balance problems in bright lighting or indoors. Apple’s device occasionally struggles with autofocus, doesn’t always nail the color cast in low lighting and has visible noise in low-light video.

The question is: how much does this influence your choice of device? Frankly, it’s complicated. Some of it clearly depends on personal preference based on your photography habits: you may pick the iPhone if you prefer a more accurate color range, or the Note 8 if you enjoy low-light shooting. This also assumes you treat DxOMark’s scores as canonical — it can’t account for every situation with tests, and it may downplay factors that you consider crucial. And of course, there’s the simple matter of liking the rest of the phone. If you’re a hardcore Android or iOS fan, even the best camera in history probably wouldn’t convince you to switch sides.

Source: DxOMark (Note 8), (iPhone 8 Plus)