Apple Expected to Launch Subscription News Service Within Next Year Following Texture Acquisition

Apple plans to offer a subscription-based news service within the next year, according to Mark Gurman, reporting for Bloomberg News. Apple declined to comment on the report, as it has not announced the plans publicly.

The service is said to be based on subscription-based digital magazine app Texture, which is expected to be integrated into the Apple News app on iPhone and iPad, pending approval of Apple’s agreement to acquire the company.

Texture provides unlimited access to over 200 digital magazines for $9.99 per month. Available magazine titles include People, Vogue, Rolling Stone, National Geographic, GQ, Sports Illustrated, Wired, Maxim, Men’s Health, GQ, Bloomberg Businessweek, ESPN The Magazine, and Entertainment Weekly.

“We are committed to quality journalism from trusted sources and allowing magazines to keep producing beautifully designed and engaging stories for users,” said Apple’s services chief Eddy Cue, on Apple acquiring Texture.

The service would essentially be like Apple Music, which provides unlimited streaming of over 45 million songs for $9.99 per month, but for news and magazines. The revenue would help boost Apple’s growing services division, including the App Store and iCloud, while a cut would also go to publishers.

The premium tier would likely complement the existing ad-supported content available within the Apple News app, which is currently available in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom on iOS 9 and later.

Apple previously offered a Newsstand app with digital magazines and newspapers, but subscriptions were only available on a title-by-title basis.

Tags: bloomberg.com, Apple News, Texture
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Sonos Announces New Colors for Sonos One Speaker Coming This September

Sonos today announced the upcoming debut of new color options for the Sonos One speaker, launching in addition to the device’s current colors of white and black. Created in collaboration with Danish design brand HAY, the Sonos One will be available in red, yellow, and green in September 2018.

Although not mentioned specifically, the announcement of the new speaker colors also includes an image with a light pink speaker, so there could be additional colors coming as well. The update is focused on new colors and does not appear to include any changes or overhauls to other features of the Sonos One, but the price will be increased to $229/£229/€259, from $199/£199/€229 (via The Verge).

Inspired by the Danish company’s 2018 color palette, the HAY Sonos One Limited Edition Collection will provide customers with a bit more personalization options for Sonos’s latest speaker, according to representatives from both companies.

“Our speakers aren’t designed to claim attention but to blend naturally into their surroundings,” says Sonos VP of Design Tad Toulis. Even with the addition of colors to the typically black-and-white Sonos product line, the new HAY Sonos One still manages to maintain that aesthetic subtlety.

“These speakers deserve to be treated like furniture: strong, independent objects that fit different needs and spaces,” says Hay. By leveraging HAY’s singular approach to color, this limited edition collection fully realizes the Sonos philosophy of sonic architecture and harmonizes both brands’ ability to create products that can transform a home.

Sonos announced and launched the Sonos One in October 2017, placing the speaker as an entrant in the ever-growing smart speaker market. In January, on the same day that pre-orders for Apple’s HomePod went live, Sonos launched a bundle that included two Sonos One speakers together for $349/£349, saving customers $50 and directly matching HomePod’s $350 price tag.

Sonos says that today’s announcement is just the start of its collaboration with HAY, so users can likely expect more colorful Sonos devices down the line. The HAY Sonos One will debut this September on Sonos.com and in Sonos flagship stores in New York City, London, and Berlin, and at the HAY House in Copenhagen.

Tag: Sonos
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SpaceX will build its massive interplanetary rocket in Los Angeles

SpaceX can start building its “Big Fucking Rocket,” now that it has officially found a home in LA. Mayor Eric Garcetti has announced on Twitter that the private space giant “will start production development of the Big Falcon Rocket (the spacecraft’s tamer name, apparently)” at the port of Los Angeles. SpaceX designed the 348-foot-long behemoth to fly humanity to the moon, Mars and beyond. It will be able to carry up to 50 tons in payload, whereas Falcon Heavy can only carry 30 tons. “This vehicle holds the promise of taking humanity deeper into the cosmos than ever before,” he added, along with an illustration of the company’s massive interplanetary spacecraft.

Officially announcing that @SpaceX will start production development of the Big Falcon Rocket 🚀 in the @PortofLA!

This vehicle holds the promise of taking humanity deeper into the cosmos than ever before. #SOTC2018 pic.twitter.com/2TtGy9NERX

— Mayor Eric Garcetti (@MayorOfLA) April 16, 2018

SpaceX signed a 30-year lease for an 18-acre site at the LA Port in late March. According to Ars Technica, it has already started moving hardware to the location with the intention of building a “state-of-the-art” manufacturing facility. Due to the BFR’s size, the company needs a new plant separate from its Hawthorne site where it builds its Falcon 9 and Heavy rockets — one that’s near water, so it can easily ship it out for testing when it’s ready.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in a statement:

“SpaceX has called the Port of Los Angeles home to our west coast recovery operations since 2012. The Port will play an increasingly important role in our mission to help make humanity multi-planetary as SpaceX begins production development of BFR — our next generation rocket and spaceship system capable of carrying crew and cargo to the moon, Mars and beyond.”

SpaceX will build the BFR not just for deep space journeys, though, but also for incredibly fast air travel from one country to another. The company believes we can use the rocket to travel anywhere on Earth within an hour. But before that can happen, SpaceX will have to put it through some rigorous testing. Company chief Elon Musk wants the first set of tests to take place in 2019, but as he said, his timelines tend to be a bit too optimistic.

Source: Bloomberg

B&O Announces ‘Premium, Powerful, Portable’ Beoplay P6 Wireless Speaker

Bang & Olufsen brand subsidiary B&O Play today announced the Beoplay P6, the latest offering in its range of portable wireless speakers.

Designed by Cecilie Manz, the P6 shares a similar aesthetic to the Danish audio company’s Beoplay A1 and P2, featuring a dust and splashproof anodized aluminum exterior with square speaker grilles on both sides, and a leather strap looped through one side for carrying.

Across the curved top of the speaker is a strip of Beomaster 6000-inspired integrated flex buttons for controlling volume, playback, Bluetooth, accepting/rejecting calls, and invoking any voice assistant available on the connected device, such as Siri on iPhone. There’s also a built-in omnidirectional mic for conference calling.

The Bluetooth speaker weighs 1kg and measures 170 x 130 x 68mm, which makes this a slim unit when you consider it houses a 2600mAh rechargeable battery providing up to 16 hours of playing time at moderate listening levels. Charging time is said to be three hours over USB-C.

The upright design is made to elevate the stereo output from three Class D amplifier channels delivering a total of 215 Watts, while Bang & Olufsen’s True360 audio processing promises a uniform radiation of sound from the aluminum chassis.

The Beoplay P6 costs $399/£349 and is available from April 23 in black and natural color options. The speaker comes with a USB-C to USB-A charging cable, while a USB-C to USB-C cable is an optional accessory. See the Beoplay website for more.

Tag: Bang & Olufsen
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Facebook class action lawsuit over facial recognition OK’d by judge

Facebook has been trying to get a lawsuit claiming its facial recognition tech violates an Illinois privacy act dismissed for years. Well, that’s not going to happen anytime soon, because San Francisco federal judge James Donato — the same judge who denied Facebook’s motion to dismiss in 2016 — has just given the case the go-ahead to proceed as a class action lawsuit. “Plaintiffs’ claims are sufficiently cohesive to allow for a fair and efficient resolution on a class basis,” he wrote in his ruling.

Judge Donato didn’t agree with Facebook’s argument that the law doesn’t apply to it, because its servers aren’t located in the state. He said the servers’ geographic locations aren’t “a dispositive factor” in the case. The lawsuit was originally filed back in 2015 by users in Illinois, accusing the social network of violating a law in the state that prohibits the collection of biometric info.

According to Donato’s decision, the class action will consist of users in the state “for whom Facebook created and stored a face template after June 7, 2011.” That was when the company rolled out “Tag Suggestions,” which recognizes and suggests people you can tag in photos. Not everyone who’s had their photos uploaded on the website can be part of the complaint, but the class-action could still have millions of people in the plaintiff’s camp. Facebook, however, “continue[s] to believe the case has no merit and” vows to “defend [itself] vigorously.”

Source: Reuters

Antitrust regulators may be looking at how Nvidia is selling graphics cards

Nvidia CEO, Jensen Huang

Nvidia’s GeForce Partner Program may face investigation by two regulatory bodies, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the E.U. Commission, over claims that it employs anti-competitive practices that unfairly advantage the company over its competitors. Although no official announcement has been made by these agencies, each has responded to independent complaints, suggesting that Nvidia is now on the radar of both.

The original indication of potential alleged anti-competitive practices of Nvidia’s GeForce Partner Program came from a HardOCP report which suggested that Nvidia was encouraging its graphics card partners to not sell AMD products as part of their gaming brands, in order to get a preferential supply of GPUs. Some gamers and PC users have announced their own boycott of Nvidia and partner hardware over these claims, and they have also attempted to get the FTC and E.U. Commission involved.

After emails and calls went out to these agencies from a number of concerned PC users, there have been posts on social networking sites like Reddit, which claim that the agencies responded. As WCCFTech reports, this could be an indication that both the FTC and E.U. Commission will begin looking into the partner program as a possible case of anti-competitive behavior.

Although no official announcement has been made from any regulatory body, and any claims of anti-competitive behaviour from Nvidia are entirely alleged and provided by anonymous sources, the evidence has been mounting. The original HardOCP report on the matter is the most damning, but other sites have also been doing their research and have uncovered some similar evidence of their own. They allege that Nvidia has been putting pressure on the largest board partners to offer Nvidia graphics cards exclusively in order to secure a good supply of those cards.

Considering the still-ongoing pricing and availability issues of many graphics cards, that issue is of even more importance for graphics card partner companies at the moment. If true, it would also do consumers no favors at all, as it would mean a concentration of supply in fewer hands, thereby potentially allowing for even greater pricing control by a few manufacturers and retail partners.

Even if the FTC and/or E.U. do look into this matter however, any response is unlikely to be swift. Unless Nvidia were to voluntarily take steps to change its alleged practices, any investigation in an official capacity would take quite some time to come to fruition.

Updated 04/16/2018 – added clarification of GPP requirements.

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What are smart contracts?

Stevepb/Pixabay
Stevepb/Pixabay

One of the most important elements of any transaction, be it a trade for goods or services, is trust. Both parties need to trust that the other will fulfil their end of the bargain. One classic method of ensuring that has been contracts — but legal documents require expertise and oversight to enforce them. Smart contracts have the potential to change all that.

What are smart contracts? In many ways, they’re no different from a contract you might have signed to complete a job, or buy a house. Unlike those, however, they’re digital and automated. Smart contracts write the agreement of the contract directly into lines of code, doing away with the need for a central organization to approve that either party completes their end of the agreement. A smart contract can do that with the help of a distributed network.

Although most commonly spoken about in the same breath as cryptocurrencies like Ethereum, smart contracts have the potential to take blockchain technology beyond Bitcoin and its altcoins and enable a world where trust is digitally secured.

Building on the blockchain

Although originally proposed by computer scientist Nick Szabo back in 1996 in his publication “Smart Contracts: Building Blocks for Digital Free Markets,” smart contracts only became feasible following the launch of Bitcoin in 2009. Bitcoin, created by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, is built upon blockchain technology, a distributed ledger that uses a network of nodes around the world to certify transactions. It’s a core component of what makes smart contracts function.

In the same way Bitcoin leverages a network of nodes — with Bitcoin they’re known as miners — to validate Bitcoin transactions, smart contracts would  use a network of nodes to confirm whether elements of it had been completed. They don’t need any one party to oversee the contract, just as Bitcoin doesn’t need a single party to oversee transactions. The network — and the smart contact itself — provide the validation that either or both parties have completed their part of the bargain, thereby providing trust without the need for a mediator.

By distributing the validation services, smart contracts are much more transparent. They’re traceable and viewable by all parties involved — and potentially by external parties too, should there be concerns over the contract’s contents.

Bitcoin technically offers basic smart contract functionality. It’s used regularly on darknet and clearnet sites to facilitate the sale of items. Once a transaction has begun, Bitcoin is sent to an escrow account, which then urges the seller to send their product. When that product arrives, the buyer confirms its receipt and Bitcoin is automatically transferred to the seller. No middleman required.

Beyond Bitcoin

Where a Bitcoin smart contract is limited to the use of its own currency, smart contracts built on platforms like Ethereum can go much further. Ethereum offers a decentralized virtual machine that is “Turing Complete.” That is, its code base supports a broader use of instructions and can, therefore, be used for a wider variety of purposes beyond the transfer of Ethereum’s token, Ether.

Smart contracts are programmable and therefore read just like programmed applications. ‘If this happens, then do that.’

With such broad applications, smart contracts could, in theory, replace contracts in a variety of situations. It could replace direct debit systems for automated payments, for example. If there is enough money in an account and a certain date is reached, the contract would transfer a set amount of money to another account and deliver a digital service in return.

When buying a house, the main smart contract could digitally transfer the deed to a home once the required funds had entered the seller’s account, with other smart contracts performing all manner of anti-fraud checks and confirmations of their own.

Neither of those instances are different from how financial transactions take place, but where traditional methods are arbitrary, controlled, and viewable by a single party or limited number of several, smart contracts would be entirely transparent. Smart contracts make parties truly accountable for their actions by simply not executing if the contract is not abided. That makes it much harder for any one actor to cheat the system, since nobody has the level of control that banks or legal institutions have currently.

With no chance of arbitrary middleman interference, and neither party having more control than the other, smart contracts should, in theory, create greater trust between parties and streamline the entire process at the same time.

An imperfect world

As powerful as smart contracts could be, they aren’t quite ready to replace every trust system we have in place already. As described in the examples above, a complicated transaction utilizing smart contracts would likely require multiple smart contracts linked together to cover all of the potential ‘if’ situations that would crop up as part of the transaction.

There’s also the “Oracle Problem,” to consider, whereby smart contracts themselves cannot interact directly with the real world. If smart contracts are involved in transactions involving real-world actions, such as professional to client services, they need an entity (an “oracle”) to tell them that that event has taken place.

That’s a real security risk. If you rely on a single oracle for a smart contract, then you have effectively eliminated the decentralizing benefit of a smart contract entirely and created a single point of failure. A decentralized oracle network makes it hard to trust anyone within that network.

Alongside the yet-to-be-fixed Oracle Problem, there also exists the security problem faced by smart contracts. Like any programmed code, smart contracts can have vulnerabilities, and that becomes even more likely as complexity increases. Following a recent research effort into Ethereum smart contracts, one company found tens of thousands of bugged contracts that could allow for the theft of tokens with ease. There is even debate as to whether such contract exploitation is illegal, since the flaws are built into the contracts themselves.

A smarter future

Fortunately for those excited by the potential for smart contracts, there are many developers working on fixing some of their glaring problems and many others keen to try out smart contracts for all manner of purposes. It will take many years and many changes if smart contracts are to be made a viable alternative for many of the legal systems we have in place currently to make sure two transactional partners trust one another, but the potential is certainly there. As cryptocurrencies continue their mainstream adoption and help introduce wider audiences to blockchain technology and some of its derivative uses, smart contracts may follow suit.

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Virtually all banking web apps are vulnerable to hackers, study finds

Using a computer today feels a bit like walking through a minefield, at least when we are using them to access or share personal and sensitive information. That is particularly true for our financial information, where the wrong person getting access to our data could mean a whole lot of pain. According to a recent study, using our bank’s web application is one of the biggest mines that we probably don’t know about.

The news comes via security firm Positive Technologies, which looked at web application security in a recent report. The results are disturbing, to say the least, with every web application tested in 2017 having at least one vulnerability, and with 94 percent having at least one vulnerability that was characterized as “high-severity.”

According to Leigh-Anne Galloway, Positive Technologies’ cybersecurity resilience lead, “Web applications practically have a target painted on their back. A large number of unfixed, exploitable vulnerabilities is a windfall for hackers, who can use these flaws to steal sensitive information or access an internal network. Fortunately, most vulnerabilities can be discovered long before an attack ever happens. The key is to analyze application source code.”

The results were even worse when looking strictly at banking and finance web applications, which made up 46 percent of the test group. Every one of the banking and finance web applications covered in the report suffered from high-severity vulnerabilities. As the organization points out, these applications are also the most attractive to hackers and so their vulnerabilities are of particular concern.

Furthermore, the data shows that 87 percent of banking and government web applications are open to attacks against users, with cross-site scripting vulnerabilities present in 82 percent of the tested web applications. That makes them good targets for phishing attacks that can infect user PCs with malware.

Clearly, the banking industry has work to do to clean up its web applications. As always, the presence of these kinds of vulnerabilities serve as a reminder that we all need to be constantly vigilant in monitoring our financial data, because we never know which online transaction will be the one that opens us up to an attack.

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Samsung now offers a Chromebook Pro with a backlit keyboard for cave dwellers

Bill Roberson/Digital Trends

Samsung now offers a version of its Chromebook Pro with a backlit keyboard for the same price as the original model. To find it, just go to the company’s Computing/Chromebooks section on its website, where it lists all six Chromebooks Samsung has to offer. The only real difference between the two outside the illuminated keyboard aspect appears to be in the Bluetooth component, with the original packing Bluetooth 4.1 while the wireless keyboard version rolls back to Bluetooth 4.0 likely for cost balance reasons. 

Samsung introduced the Chromebook Pro on May 28, 2017, designed for professionals. It was one of the first to ship with Google Play right out of the box, providing owners with the cloud-based benefits of Chrome OS, but also support for locally installed Android apps. Both aspects are backed by a 12.3-inch screen and a 360-degree hinge supporting Laptop, Stand, Tent, and Tablet modes. 

Key Specs

Screen size: 12.3 inches

Resolution: 2400 x 1600

CPU:  Core m3-6Y30

Graphics: HD Graphics 515

Memory: 4GB

Storage: 32GB

Sound: 2x 1.5-watt speakers

Camera: 720p

Connectivity: Wireless AC, Bluetooth

Ports: 2x USB-C, more

Battery: 39WHr

Weight: 2.40 pounds

Color: Metallic Black

Accessory: Samsung Pen

Price: $599 

Nearly a year later, the backlit version of Samsung’s Chromebook Pro still relies on Intel’s sixth-generation Core m3-6Y30 processor released in the third quarter of 2015. That said, the dual-core chip is showing its age given we’re knee-deep in Intel’s eighth generation, sporting a base speed of 900MHz and a maximum speed of 2.20GHz. Then again, Chrome OS isn’t a highly demanding operating system like Windows 10, so you really don’t need the latest, fastest chip on the planet designed just for mobile. 

As the list shows, Samsung’s Chromebook Pro includes 4GB of LPDDR3 (aka low-power memory), 32GB of flash-based storage, and a Micro SD card slot for additional storage. You’ll need that slot given the Chromebook supports Google Play, as Android apps will quickly consume your 32GB of internal space and you’ll need extra room for your downloaded media. 

Other notable features outside the backlit keyboard include a built-in 720p webcam, two USB-C 3.1 Gen1 ports, a headphone/microphone combo jack, Wireless AC connectivity up to 867Mbps (2×2), and Bluetooth 4.0. The audio aspect is provided by a Realtek component powering two 1.5-watt speakers. All of this is backed by a 39WHr batter promising up to nine hours on a single charge. 

“Samsung Chromebook Pro’s sleek and lightweight design with the rotating display lets you switch from tablet to notebook anytime and the built-in Pen is ergonomically designed to write or draw naturally, never needing a charge,” the company says. “Featuring a high-resolution Quad HD touchscreen display, users can experience vivid pictures and immersive viewing with bright videos.” 

As stated, the Chromebook Pro ships with a pen that slides into the Chromebook’s body. With this peripheral, you can doodle, sketch, edit photos, take screenshots, magnify the screen and more right on the Chromebook Pro’s touch-capable display. 

Samsung’s Chromebook Pro variant with a backlit keyboard is available now for $599 on Samsung’s website. Also, check out our review of the original model.

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Hackers stole digital coins while a YouTube broadcaster advised about ICOs

Sponsored YouTube blogger Ian Balina, who is known for reviewing cryptocurrency initial coin offerings, fell prey to hackers during a recent live-stream, losing around $2 million in tokens. During the stream, one viewer noticed that someone drained all the tokens stored in Balina’s wallet, but the comment went unnoticed. Around 15 minutes later, Balina pulled the plug on his broadcast and didn’t resume the current review until two hours later. 

Later, Balina said he halted the broadcast because he noticed he was forced out of his Google Sheets profile. “I’m not worried about the money. I learned my lesson. I only care about catching the hacker,” he said on Twitter. 

According to Etherscan, there are 121 transactions related to Balina listed as “IanBal_Hack” followed by a single number up to four. Under the Token Transfers tab, you will find the transfer of 1 million Loom tokens, 2 million Pareto Network tokens, more than 20 million Nucleus Vision tokens, more than 75,000 Bread, and more related to IndiaHash, WaBi, Telcoin, and VIN. 

So what happened? According to Balina, the hacks stems back to his old college email address. It’s listed as a recovery email address in Gmail and was apparently hacked in the past. He received an email from the college about the hack attempt and worked with the institution’s security team to resolve the issue. But they took too long and he simply gave up on the old email address. 

“I kept text versions of my private keys stored in my Evernote, as encrypted text files with passwords,” he said. “I think they hacked my [Gmail] using my college email, and then hacked my Evernote.” 

Viewers question the validity of the hack, wondering if this “attack” was merely a scheme to avoid paying taxes. Others point out the problems of bragging about your wealth online, and that storing private keys in Evernote, in a Box account, within an email or Excel file is just a really bad idea. 

Meanwhile, Balina is coined as the “shill guy” over on Reddit, as comments suggest that he receives one to two percent of the token supply he advises to followers. This could be why he doesn’t show concern over the lost money: The stolen tokens may simply not be a personal financial investment. Many believe that he should disclose his possible earnings when promoting initial coin offerings during broadcasts. 

“Balina does very good research and has a pretty sound strategy that he shares for free,” one Reddit user defends. “I don’t care that he gets paid to advise ICOs.” 

Regardless of his background, income, and intention, Balina’s worth is down $2 million in cryptocurrency due to relying on Evernote. Based on the information he provides, he may use the same password for his old college email account, Gmail, and Evernote. He has more than 116,000 followers on YouTube, making him a prime target given the financial info he throws into his streams. 

Currently, Balina is watching his digital coins wash up on Binance, KuCoin, and other exchanges.  

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