Documents suggest some Best Buy Geek Squad employees were paid to inform by FBI

For some time, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been investigating an alleged relationship between the FBI and Best Buy’s Geek Squad repair service. According to the EFF, the FBI has been working with Geek Squad employees to gain access to incriminating information present on the PCs of Best Buy customers. Thanks to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and lawsuit, the EFF has uncovered new information it says supports its allegations.

The information implies a relationship between the FBI and employees of Best Buy’s Geek Squad that could be even “cozier” than the EFF originally suspected, according to a recent blog post by the EFF. A number of documents were released under the FOIA request, which can be viewed here and here, describe a very close relationship that involves the FBI allegedly paying Geek Squad staff as informants and could potentially be a violation of PC owners’ Fourth Amendment rights.

In one example, the EFF believes that Geek Squad technicians were paid by the FBI to act as informants, and that such payments were made as part of the investigation into Dr. Mark Rettenmaier, who was charged with possession of child pornography. The image in question in that case was apparently discovered by the Geek Squad on unallocated space on Rettenmaier’s hard drive, a process that usually involves forensic software and wouldn’t normally result from typical data recovery processes. Ultimately, the judge in Rettenmaier’s case threw out this evidence due to “false and misleading statements” by the FBI, as the Los Angeles Times reports, and his case was dismissed.

According to the EFF, the new evidence indicates that the FBI’s alleged payments to Geek Squad employees to dig into customer hard drives for potentially incriminating evidence represents a potential Fourth Amendment violation. Some documents indicate that the FBI is notified only when illegal materials are discovered as a normal part of a data recovery process, and going beyond that process to find incriminating evidence would usually require a warrant.

Apparently, FBI agents would visit the Best Buy repair facility in Kentucky to view images and other information that was discovered by a Geek Squad technician. If there was evidence of a crime, then the FBI agent would remove the equipment and ship it off to the FBI office near the customer’s location. Then a warrant would sometimes be obtained in order to investigate further. The important distinction is whether the Geek Squad employee discovered the incriminating evidence while performing the contracted services or, perhaps induced by an FBI bounty, went beyond those services to “actively sweep for suspicious content.”

For its part, Best Buy disputes the EFF’s allegations of a formal relationship between the company and the FBI. In a statement to ZDNet, Best Buy said:

“As a company, we have not sought or received training from law enforcement in how to search for child pornography. Our policies prohibit employees from doing anything other than what is necessary to solve the customer’s problem. In the wake of these allegations, we have redoubled our efforts to train employees on what to do — and not do — in these circumstances. We have learned that four employees may have received payment after turning over alleged child pornography to the FBI. Any decision to accept payment was in very poor judgment and inconsistent with our training and policies. Three of these employees are no longer with the company and the fourth has been reprimanded and reassigned.”

The EFF will contin ue to seek to gain access to information that the FBI has so far withheld despite its FOIA suit filed in 2017. Open questions include whether or not the FBI has similar relationships with other companies, and whether it has procedures or training in place on how its agents gather information from computer repair services.

Editors’ Recommendations

• Google’s Waymo vs. Uber: Everything you need to know
• When a movie isn’t enough, the best shows on Netflix will keep you busy for days
• Inside the hack Uber didn’t want 57 million users to know about
• The best movies on Netflix right now
• Samsung’s jailed chairman freed after sentence reduced and suspended

Google adds video and audio voicemail to Duo

Rolling out to Android and iOS starting today.

Google Duo has become one of the best video-calling apps around, and today it’s adding a helpful tool for when contacts you try to reach aren’t available.

Next time you call someone on Duo and they don’t answer, you’ll have an option to leave them a video message. Messages can be up to 30-seconds long, and once you’re happy with how your message turns out, you can send it to whoever you’re trying to reach.

The recipient of your video message will see it the next time they open the Duo app, and after they view it for the first time, it’ll automatically disappear after 24 hours. However, if they want to save your message for safekeeping, there will be an option to save it locally on their device.

Additionally, if you like using Duo for voice calls, you’ll also have the option of leaving traditional audio-only messages.

Google’s rolling out this functionality to Duo’s Android and iOS apps now, and it should be available across the globe over the coming days.

Download: Google Duo (free)

Here’s how to download the Android P Pixel Launcher

Android P’s first developer preview is here, and while there’s a lot that remains unknown, it’s still exciting times in the world of Android. The overall look of Android P seems to be mostly the same compared to Oreo, but one area that has seen a visual update is the Pixel Launcher.

In Android P, the Pixel Launcher now has an outline around the Google search bar and your dock that moves up as you swipe open your app drawer. It’s a small change that doesn’t add any new functionality, but it is a sleek look.

Current version (left) and Android P version (right)

Along with this, you’ll also find a new microphone icon on the search bar. Tapping the icon brings up the Google Assistant, and while I still find squeezing my Pixel 2 to be faster, it’s a nice touch nonetheless.

If you want to get the updated Pixel Launcher on your phone now, all you have to do is download and install this file. I got it to work just fine on my Pixel 2 running Android 8.1, and Droid-Life reports similar success with the Essential Phone on its 8.1 beta.

Current version (left) and Android P version (right)

The launcher is just as fast as the current version with Oreo, but I noticed that the “Wallpapers”, “Widgets”, and “Home Settings” icons are visible behind the app drawer when it’s open for whatever reason.

If that doesn’t bother you, have fun with your updated home screen!

Android P: Top 6 things you need to know!

Vero – True Social: Everything you need to know!

We go through the facts and controversies surrounding Vero, the trendy new social media app!

If you’re tuned into the latest social media fads you’ve probably been hearing about Vero over the past few weeks. This new app, currently in beta, seemingly exploded over night on the promise of offering an ad-free social media platform that lets you share and view content chronologically and organized by the type of content you share.

Oh, and it’ll eventually be a paid subscription service but users who sign up now will get free access for life.

Want to learn more? Let’s dive in.

What is Vero?

So the name Vero is taken from the Italian word for “truth”, which ostensibly connects to the core concept behind Vero as being a ‘true social media ‘ network that aims to deliver a more authentic user experience by cutting out the ads and giving you more control over who sees the content that you post.

Available for both iOS and Android, it’s laid out similarly to Instagram and features an eye-pleasing dark layout. After spending some time at the top of the Google Play Store charts, Vero quickly amassed over 1 million users and has been touted as an alternative to Facebook and other traditional social media networks that rely on ad-based revenue.

Learn More

What makes Vero different?

Vero posted a manifesto that does a good job of articulating the vision behind the app. Basically, if you’ve been fed up with the way Facebook and Instagram have devolved into superficial marketing tools, Vero is looking to take social media in the other direction.

There are three big differences between the big social media brands such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter and what Vero is offering: no ads, no “trending” algorithms, and, eventually, the implementation of a paid subscription.

When Vero says that there will be no ads, that is to say that you will only ever see content from people or brands that you follow. Vero allows brands, companies, and charitable organizations to set up accounts on Vero complete with merchant or donation links for selling directly to Vero users — but you will only ever see those posts on your feed if you choose to follow those accounts. As well, you have the option of privately setting the friends you connect with into three categories — Acquaintances, Friends, and Close Friends — and you control who sees the content you post.

There are six different types of content you can share on Vero: Images/videos, Links, Music, Movie/TV, Books, and Places. Content is displayed in the main feed based on when it was posted, so you’ll never miss a post from a friend because an algorithm decided to show you something else instead. Furthermore, there’s the “Collections” tab right on the home screen that makes it really easy to browse through each post category and see everything that you and your friends have shared.

Right now, Vero users can sign up and use the service for free but at some point a switch will be flipped and Vero will require a paid subscription. Initially, Vero offered free lifetime access for the first million users that registered but after the app quickly surpassed that number in spite of some really frustrating technical issues Vero announced that it would be extending the “free for life” offer to all new users until further notice.

That sounds good, however…

Vero’s quick rise over the past few weeks has unearthed some potential controversies. For starters, the big influx of new users crippled the Vero servers leading to a nearly unusable app for a few days and a bunch of issues for people trying to register. The app has greatly improved since and is now fairly stable on its latest update, but those rough first impressions led to a ton of hot takes about the app being garbage which may have permanently turned some folks off.

We apologize for the late update.We are scaling our servers to meet the increasing demand.We appreciate your continued patience while we work to restore service.

— Vero (@verotruesocial) February 26, 2018

Vero’s viral rise also brought to light some other controversies, seemingly started by a series of tweets by user Pasquale D’Silva that raised a number of questions about previous business dealings by Vero CEO Ayman Hariri, and pointing out that the Vero development team is predominantly male and made up of mostly Russian-born developers.

The optics of a Russian-developed social media app launching at a time when the Russian government is being accused of meddling with foreign politics in the U.S. is enough to give some folks pause.

Hariri is a Lebanese billionaire heir and businessman whose father served as prime minister of Lebanon until his assassination in 2005. His brother, Saad, is currently serving as prime minister of Lebanon, so it would be fair to say that his family is politically connected to say the least. Ayman was previously the CEO of Saudi Oger Ltd, a construction company owned and operated by the Hariri family based out of Saudi Arabia. The company was accused of not paying and mistreating thousands of migrant workers back in 2015 based on reporting by Reuters in 2016, and this was shared on social media and widely reported, however Vero has come out and clarified that Ayman divested his interests in Saudi Oger in 2013 and shifted his focus to new ventures including starting Vero in 2015. Saudi Oger shut down operations in 2017.

So while that might clear up that bit of controversy dogging CEO’s history, the optics of a Russian-developed social media app in a time when the Russian government is being accused of meddling with foreign politics in the U.S. is enough to rightly give some folks pause.

Hariri has attempted to ease concerns over his development team. In an interview with TIME, he argued that the nationality of the people developing the app is “irrelevant”:

“At the end of the day, where people are from is really not how anybody should judge anyone,” Hariri says. “The people that I work with are incredibly talented, dedicated, honest people that really care about the user experience and developing something that has meaning and is well thought out. There’s a tremendous amount of care that pours into what we’re doing. And so it’s completely irrelevant where they’re from. What’s important is the work they do and their commitment to creating a real online social network and not an online network that takes advantage of the fact that people like to be social with one another.”

Whether or not you buy into Hariri’s rhetoric here or remain wary is at your own discretion.

Can it live up to the hype?

This is really hard to say. We’ve all seen social media apps that have come and gone — remember Peach, Mastodon, or Ello? If you don’t, there’s a reason. But purely based on the app design and the deep pockets of the man leading Vero, it does feel like a strong contender to stick around and challenge the current ad-based model for social media.

Of course, there are many questions that remain that might keep people away from Vero. Is there anything actually nefarious surrounding it’s Russian development team, or are those xenophobic concerns unfounded? Can Vero prove itself to be a stable social media platform? Finally, and most importantly of all, will anyone actually pay to use Vero, or will they inevitably be forced to pivot to an ad-based revenue model?

Speaking from my own personal experience using Vero, I’ve enjoyed using Vero since it’s stability has improved and I will continue to test the waters. But until I see a more concrete migration from Facebook to Vero from my personal social circle, it would be hard for me to fully commit to a platform that still lacks the content of its competition.

A social media platform is only as good as the users who use it.

What do you think about Vero?

Have you or your friends signed up? What do you think of the app’s offering? Do you think this will be another flash-in-the-pan social media app or will it stick around and challenge the likes of Facebook and Instagram? Let us know in the comments.

Download: Vero – True Social (Free)

Android P will officially be released during Q3 2018

The beta will come out in early May.

After plenty of speculation, Android P is finally here – well, sort of. The first developer preview was officially released on March 7, 2018, and while it’s still incredibly buggy and unstable, gives us an early look at what we can expect for the software’s final release. Thanks to a timeline that was recently shared on the Android Developers site, we now have a better idea as to when that’ll happen.

In early May, Google will release Developer Preview 2. This will see Android P exiting the alpha stage and entering its official beta, and we should get an announcement for this change during Google I/O that’s scheduled to take place between May 8th and the 10th.

Also, while it’s not officially confirmed quite yet, DP2 should also see Android P open up as a public beta that anyone can access if they so choose.

Early June will see the release of DP3, and this will introduce Android P’s final APIs, Play publishing, and official SDK. DP4 will follow later in the month as a release candidate for testing, and DP5 will come out in either late July or early August as a final release candidate.

Lastly, Google will push the final build of Android P at some point in August. That’s a good six months from the time of publishing this article, but as more developer previews are released during that time, we’ll be able to see Android P change and mature into what’ll be available at launch.

Based on what we’ve seen so far, what are you most excited for with Android P?

Here’s how to download the Android P Pixel Launcher

How to fix Bluetooth issues on the Honor 7X

Having trouble with Bluetooth? Try these troubleshooting tips.

For under $200, the Honor 7X is simply one of the best budget phones you can buy. It offers a modern design with an aluminum unibody construction and an 18:9 display, along with an impressive pair of cameras for the price around the back and a rear-mounted fingerprint sensor. But the 7X doesn’t come without its flaws.

A number of users have reported various problems with Bluetooth connectivity over the last few months, and there’s nothing worse than getting a new phone and not being able to use it to its full potential. That’s why we’ve put together this troubleshooting guide, in case you run into problems of your own.

See at Amazon

• Trouble connecting to devices
• Bluetooth causing slow WiFi speeds

Trouble connecting to devices

While not a problem exclusive to the Honor 7X, this phone occasionally suffers from trouble connecting to paired devices. The first thing you might want to do is simply toggle Bluetooth off and back on.

Open Settings.
Tap Bluetooth.
Tap to turn off the switch next to Turn on Bluetooth (not blue).
Tap the switch again to turn Bluetooth back on.

If after a few seconds, your Bluetooth device still isn’t showing up on the list, the next step might be to unpair from it entirely and start over.

In the Bluetooth settings, tap the i next to the name of your paired device.
Tap Unpair.

The device should move from your paired devices list to the list of available devices, at which point you can begin the pairing process all over again.

Bluetooth causing slow WiFi speeds

A lot of users have noticed that the Honor 7X pulls extremely slow WiFi speeds when Bluetooth is enabled. Unfortunately, this is due to hardware; as a cost-cutting measure, Bluetooth and WiFi run off of the same 2.4GHz antenna on the Honor 7X, and the phone doesn’t support 5GHz frequencies. Sadly the only way to improve WiFi speeds is to turn off Bluetooth entirely.

Open Settings.
Tap Bluetooth.
Tap the switch to turn off Bluetooth.

That’s it! While this is a frustrating hardware limitation of the phone, you can still stream media to your Bluetooth speakers through your data plan rather than WiFi. If you’re worried about going over your data limit, keep in mind that while WiFi speeds are slower with Bluetooth turned on, they’re likely still good enough to stream standard quality music from most streaming services.

CBS plans more All Access shows to compete with Netflix

CBS plans to add more shows to its All Access streaming service in the next year in a bid to compete with Netflix and other providers. At an investor conference in Florida, COO Joseph Ianniello confirmed more content was coming to the service: “We’re doubling down there. You’re going to see six to seven originals on CBS All Access in the next 12 months,” according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Ianniello said the service is following up on the success of Star Trek: Discovery with The Good Fight, its cop comedy No Activity and the upcoming Jordan Peele-involved The Twilight Zone reboot. Other new series would help the provider compete against Netflix, though All Access is still rolling out internationally. Its expansion to Canada and Australia are test markets for its eventual spread beyond the US.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Ianniello noted that CBS is focused on bringing All Access up to Netflix’s level. “We obviously watch Netflix and we see what they can do and say — what percentage of Netflix can we be, based on the content we have?”

Source: The Hollywood Reporter

Windows 10’s next major update includes an AI platform

How important is AI to Microsoft? So important that it’s making the technology a staple of its software. The company has revealed that the next big Windows 10 update will include an AI platform, Windows ML, that lets developers use pre-trained machine learning systems in their apps. This will save them the hassle of writing their own AI systems, of course, but it could also lead to faster AI. App creators can have machine learning tasks run on your PC instead of the cloud, and draw on hardware acceleration from processors and graphics chips (including from AMD, Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm).

The technology will support the “industry standard” ONNX format for machine learning models, so AI veterans won’t necessarily have to reinvent the wheel to incorporate their work.

Microsoft hasn’t said when that Windows 10 update will arrive beyond this year, although programmers will get an early peek at it in the Visual Studio Preview 15.7 release. You should hear more about the feature both at its Windows Developer day on March 7th as well as at the Build conference in May.

This isn’t an unheralded event when Google is already including an AI platform (TensorFlow Lite) as part of Android Oreo, but it’s relatively new in the PC world and could have a transformative effect. Microsoft is hoping that you’ll see “more intelligence” across Windows devices, even if it’s for simple tasks like auto-generated music playlists — it won’t have to be limited to developers with deep enough pockets to tackle AI on their own.

Source: Windows Developer Blog

You can now ask Cortana to check your Outlook email

Do you thrive on Outlook email, but wish you didn’t have to stare at your PC or phone to catch new messages? You don’t have to… if you have the right devices. Microsoft’s Cortana assistant now lets you check for new Outlook emails using your voice if you’re using Windows 10 or a Harman Kardon Invoke speaker and have set your language to US English. If you’ve used similar features with voice assistants like Siri, it behaves in a similar way: you can ask if there are new messages, get a summary of what’s new and (most importantly) offer a short reply if it makes sense.

There’s no mention of whether or not this will be enabled for Cortana on Android and iOS, although the AI helper isn’t tightly integrated on those platforms.

It might not take much to call Cortana when you need it, either. If you have an Invoke, you can activate the voice assistant just by saying “Cortana” instead of “hey Cortana” as you normally do. There’s no mention of support for Windows 10 or other platforms, but it’s still helpful — much like Amazon’s “Alexa” hotword, it should help you start commands that much faster.

Source: Windows Central, The Verge

Alexa is randomly laughing, and it’s creepy as hell

If you have an Alexa-powered device, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was haunted: users have been complaining that their devices would laugh randomly or simply refuse to do what they were asked. Is your smart speaker going to murder you in your sleep? Thankfully, no. Amazon has confirmed that it’s aware of the problem and is “working to fix it.” The company hasn’t said what went wrong, but it’s notable that this isn’t a case of accidentally triggering the voice assistant — the laughter has kicked in without triggering the signature blue light that accompanies responses on Echo speakers and other Alexa devices.

We’ve asked Amazon if it can comment further.

Whatever the cause, this isn’t what Amazon needed. Alexa suffered an outage as part of a broader cloud service problem just days ago, and it just spent an unearthly sum of money on a Super Bowl ad to persuade people that Alexa was indispensable. You probably won’t see many people throwing their Echos out in a panic, but it’s going to take a while before Amazon can regain the trust of creeped-out device owners.

So Alexa decided to laugh randomly while I was in the kitchen. Freaked @SnootyJuicer and I out. I thought a kid was laughing behind me. pic.twitter.com/6dblzkiQHp

— CaptHandlebar (@CaptHandlebar) February 23, 2018

Source: Twitter, BuzzFeed, The Verge