YouTube’s future pay-only shows include one from ‘The Rock’
YouTube is more determined than ever to line up major original shows for its Red subscription service. The video giant has scored deals for three new exclusives from names you will definitely recognize. The highlight might just be Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson’s Lifeline. Apart from its celebrity producer, the sci-fi series revolves around the intriguing (if Minority Report-like) concept of insurers who travel 33 days ahead in time to prevent the deaths of their customers.
Not that you’d overlook other work in the pipeline. Bourne Identity producer Doug Liman is crafting Impulse, a sci-fi flick about a girl who can teleport out of dangerous situations. Community’s Dan Harmon, meanwhile, is writing a comedy series that stars Game Grumps personalities Dan Avidan and Arin “Egoraptor” Hanson in a quest for eSports glory.
As before, YouTube Red isn’t trying to directly take on the likes of Amazon, Hulu or Netflix, despite the high-profile creators attached to its projects. Rather, it’s aiming to create shows that are extensions of what YouTube fans already like — it’s hoping that you’ll pay $10 per month for Red to see more elaborate content from the people you watch every day. It’s far too soon to say if this will work, but it’s apparent that YouTube isn’t worried that it will miss out on the next House of Cards or Transparent.
Source: Variety
LG’s new flagship V20 will retail for $769
We got our hands on LG’s Android Nougat-equipped V20 last month and found a solidly built (if somewhat conservative) new flagship device. Now that the V20 is getting ready for its public debut on October 28th, we can finally nail down how much this thing costs: at launch, a full retail price V20 can be yours for a cool $769.
That price comes from T-Mobile’s pre-order page so your mileage may vary depending on your carrier and plan. On AT&T, for example, it’ll end up costing around $830 total if you go for the AT&T Next Every Year plan and pony up the $35 monthly installments for 24 months.
The V20 packs a 5.7-inch Quad HD main display (plus a second display for notifications), Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64 GB of storage and a two-camera setup that combines an 8-megapixel wide-angle sensor with a second 16-megapixel sensor. So, at the lower end of the pricing options, that puts LG’s first Android 7.0 Nougat phone roughly on par with a 64GB iPhone 7 (and, for what it’s worth, the V20 comes with a headphone jack). On the other hand, it’ll cost you about $120 more than a baseline Google Pixel with comparable specs. Either way, expect that $769 price to translate to the rest of the market and look for Engadget’s full review when we’ve had a chance to play around with a final production model.
Via: 9to5Google
Source: T-Mobile
Google Flights adds price-tracking notifications
Booking the cheapest flight can be daunting. Should you book from an airline’s site or go with something like Expedia? Plus, there’s the trick of using Chrome in Incognito Mode can usually save you a few bucks. Of course none of those tell you when is the best time to buy tickets. That’s what Google Flights is hoping to do.
A Google Flights update is rolling out today that will notify users when the price of a flight is expected to increase. A card will pop up that say how much the cost will go up and in how many days. This is in addition to sharing tips on how to lower a ticket price by showing nearby airports and alternative dates.
The flight information is based on historic data so it might not be 100 percent accurate. Still, if you’re booking a big trip and you want to get the best possible price this is another trick you can use to get where you’re going without emptying your bank account.
It would seem that the company really wants you to go on vacation. In addition to the new Flights features, last month it introduced Google Trips to help you find interesting things to do while you’re away. As for this latest feature, the update is rolling out now and should be available to everyone within the next few weeks.
Source: Google Flights
Samsung’s leaked Chromebook is a pen-toting premium hybrid
Samsung’s Chromebook strategy has so far focused on the budget-conscious crowd, but it’s about to change in a big, big way. Chrome Unboxed tipsters have uncovered store listings (and briefly, a landing page) for a Chromebook Pro that would cater to people wanting a high-end Chrome OS experience. The 12.3-inch system would not only have a Chromebook Flip-style 360-degree touchscreen, but a pen — you could turn this Google-powered laptop into an impromptu drawing tablet. The page hints at a pre-installed ArtCanvas app for creative types, and the pen would no doubt come in handy for promised Android app support.
The stylus wouldn’t be the only selling point. The Pro would come wrapped in a “full metal” shell that helps it measure just 0.55 inches at its thickest point. It’d have a very sharp 2,400 x 1,600 display, too. And a six-core, 2GHz ARM processor should both help with battery life (up to 10 hours) and improve compatibility with Android apps.
If the store listings are accurate, you’d have to spend a hefty $499 to get the Chromebook Pro, which could arrive as soon as October 24th. That’s a lot to spend on a Chrome OS device, especially one that doesn’t have the processing power of similarly premium rivals like the HP Chromebook 13. However, it might be the machine to get if you’re buying a Chromebook with Android apps in mind.
Via: 9to5Google, Chrome Unboxed
Source: Adorama, Samsung landing page (cached)
The FBI served Google with a secret subpoena
Tucked into Google’s latest bi-annual transparency report, the search behemoth quietly revealed that it received a secret subpoena from the FBI sometime during the first half of 2015. While the subpoena itself wasn’t necessarily out of the ordinary, what’s troubling is the fact that it was accompanied by a gag order that prevented Google from revealing publicly that the government came knocking.
The secret subpoena is known as a national security letter and, as The Intercept notes it does not require court approval. Instead, investigators only needed to prove that the information they’re trying to get out of Google was “relevant to an authorized investigation to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.” The fact that the letter is only now coming to light is a result of the USA Freedom Act, which modified the Patriot Act to make sure that such letters are periodically reviewed to ensure they are still required. Still, Google has not yet disclosed the contents of the letter itself, which implies that the gag may still be partially in place or Google may be challenging it in a closed court.
Earlier this month, the ACLU and Open Whisper Systems, the company behind end-to-end encrypted messaging app Signal, revealed that OWS had also received a national security letter along with a request for information about two Signal users. In that case, the ACLU and OWS successfully argued that the Justice Department overstepped with their broad gag order and were allowed to go public with their story. Even though these two letters have now been (somewhat) publicized, because of their nature, ACLU staff attorney Brett Max Kaufman wrote during the Signal case that, “there are many more like it, hiding in the filing cabinets in the U.S. attorney’s offices across the country.”
Source: Google Transparency Report, The Intercept
‘Secure’ apps in Google’s Play Store are a crapshoot
Infosec Apple fanboys are not known for their empathy — either for those who can’t afford their holy high fetish of phone security (iPhone) or for those who simply can’t stomach the ecosystem’s mounting hypocrisies.
But there’s one thing on their side. Apple’s App Store at least tries to curate product security, while Google’s Play Store is like playing appsec Russian roulette.
Nowhere has that been made more clear than in a post by researcher Jon Sawyer, called Password Storage in Sensitive Apps. Sawyer does freelance contract work “breaking and/or fixing Android phones and related software” — he hacks everything Android. For a recent gig, he was contacted by a forensic specialist for a law enforcement agency.
The law enforcement contact told Sawyer they had a phone with information on it “that could make or break a very sensitive case.” They had been trying to access the phone’s files and get data off the device with commercial mobile forensic tools but weren’t having any luck.
Sawyer verified their identity and purpose and got to the task at hand. “Using a backdoor … and some trickery we were able to fully extract all data off the device,” he explained. “This had me thinking, what next? What if this criminal was using another layer of security? What if they had a “secure storage” app, what if their photos, videos and whatnot were encrypted in an additional layer of security?”
Sawyer searched Google’s app store for “Secure Photo” and grabbed the first result. He doesn’t say which app this is. But in my search, the top result was Hide Pictures Keep Safe Vault, listed as a Play Store “Editors’ Choice” by a “Top Developer,” with 4.6 stars and between 10 million and 50 million downloads.
When he started hacking the app and looking at the supposedly safe and secure files, Sawyer found that “sure enough the files stored were encrypted.” But then he discovered that “the PIN was stored in plaintext as a shared preference” — making the app neither safe nor secure should you want to keep your files from the prying eyes of hackers or law enforcement.
Apparently, for Sawyer, this was so easy it was no fun. He moved on to installing and hacking the next result in his search, Private Photo Vault. That one had a 4.1-star rating, 17,000 starred reviews, and over one million downloads.
“The #1 iOS Private Photo App is now available on Android! Private Photo Vault is a photo safe that keeps all of your private pictures and videos hidden behind a password.”
The researcher was hopeful. “The initial results were more promising than the first app, no plaintext PIN stored in the shared preferences.” But, he wrote, “the promise didn’t last long.” When Sawyer found (by testing it on himself) that unmasking any Vault user’s PIN code was easy, he “stopped analysis at this point, the app was already beyond broken.
“These companies are selling products that claim to securely store your most intimate pieces of data, yet are at most snake oil. You would have near equal protection just by changing the file extension and renaming the photos.”
If you want to know what happens when a hacker visits the Google Play Store trying to find an app that can’t be cracked … well, it’s not pretty. And that’s where Apple’s App Store has some advantage, even though iOS apps aren’t as secure as users want to believe. Yet while the App Store is hypocritically censored to hell and back, treats developers like crap and has its share of garbage on offer, app security has always been its strong suit.
Although there was that one time scientists at Georgia Tech got an app named Jekyll into the App Store in 2013. Jekyll bypassed every security measure put in place by Apple to protect its users and could stealthily tweet, take photos, steal device identity information, send email and SMS and much more. “Our method allows attackers to reliably hide malicious behavior that would otherwise get their app rejected by the Apple review process,” the researchers wrote in their paper, Jekyll on iOS: When Benign Apps Become Evil.
The app was pulled before anyone downloaded it, but the point was made: Nothing is as secure as any company promises. And in typical Apple PR fashion, it still remains unclear whether the vulnerabilities exploited by Jekyll were completely fixed.
With Google’s new Pixel phone, an attack like this is at least less likely. Similar to its Nexus phones on Google’s Project Fi program, the Pixel will mainline operating system updates and security refreshes (one of many reasons I’ll be excited to get my hands on one, app store sketchiness notwithstanding). But, as Jon Sawyer found out after his recent law enforcement project, there’s a lot of false advertising in the Play Store under the guise of “secure” apps.
As I mentioned, I’m an Android phone user and fan, so I obviously don’t believe it’s all snake oil in the Google Play Store. I just think it’s wise to make our downloading decisions with the scrutiny afforded by the death of security-by-way-of-wishful-thinking.
Google search results now include full localized ballot info
Google has been putting election-related information right at its users’ fingertips in recent months — the company made it easier to register to vote, has state-specific details on how to vote right in search results and it now highlights fact-checking stories in Google News. The latest addition to Google’s slate of voter tools is localized polling place and ballot information. Searching for “who’s on my ballot” will bring up results tailored to your location, and you can tap or click on the names to find out more details about each candidate.
The results are broken up into national and state races, and each candidate’s party is clearly labeled where applicable. At the bottom of the listing are buttons you can tap to pull up the aforementioned voter registration details and voting instructions as well as details on exactly where your polling place is. You can also see what your voter ID requirements are when looking at the details for your polling location.
Rather than using your phone or computer’s location, Google asks you to put in your home address — but if you have a home location set up in your Google account, you can fill those details in with one tap. Now, you just need to make up your mind on how you’re voting.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Google
Google will launch dedicated search results for mobile
In a few months’ time, you might notice getting different sets of search results on a phone and on a computer even if you use the same terms. That’s because Google has decided to start indexing mobile websites separately, according to Search Engine Land. Mountain View has been toying with the idea since last year — the continued growth in the number of mobile users might have finally convinced the tech titan to push through with it. Gary Illyes, the company’s trends analyst, has revealed the info at digital marketing conference Pubcon, where he also assured people that Google will still have a desktop index. It just won’t be as fresh and as up to date as the one for mobile.
The big G launched several other features in the past meant to encourage website owners to tweak their domains for phone users. Last year, it made sure its mobile search results prioritize websites optimized for phones. More recently, it started marking Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) on the results page, so people can choose the website with the fastest loading time.
.@methode: Google creating a sep mobile index, which will be it’s primary index. Desktop will be a secondary index,less up to date #Pubcon
— Lisa Barone (@LisaBarone) October 13, 2016
Google will still have a desktop index, it just won’t be as fresh as the mobile index. #pubcon
— Lisa Barone (@LisaBarone) October 13, 2016
Via: Business Insider
Source: Search Engine Land
Google highlights fact-checking stories one month before election
This year’s US presidential election is one of the most acrimonious in memory, with not a day going by without one campaign accusing the other of outrageous falsehood (some more than others). With one month to go until the country casts its votes, Google has started to specifically tag fact-checking articles on Google News to help readers decipher the truth from the outrageously false accusations and untruths.
When you visit Google’s news site or use the Google “News and Weather” app for iOS and Android, you’ll see fact-checking articles included alongside pieces of news, specifically labeled as such. The fact-check tag joins existing news tags like “opinion,” “in-depth” and “highly cited.”
In a blog post announcing the new feature, Google notes that the Duke Reporter’s Lab has found that “rigorous fact checks are now conducted by more than 100 active sites” — that may not sound like a lot, but it’s a field that has grown in a huge way in recent years. Glenn Kessler, who runs The Washington Post’s “Fact Checker” section said that there were only four such organizations back in 2010.
“I think that voters and people interested in politics really want to see whether or not politicians are telling the truth,” Kessler said today in a phone interview. “There was a lot of publicity given to the American fact checkers in the 2012 election and a lot of international news coverage about the fact checkers, and that inspired fact checkers to spring up all over the place — in Latin America, Africa, Asia, all across Europe.”
And in a particularly tense and contested election year, it looks like people are indeed trying to separate the truth out of the many wild statements and stories being reported every day. Kessler said that traffic to his fact-checking site was up 477 percent this July compared to the previous year. Of course, in an election year there’s bound to be more interest, but that’s just one of many signs showing how fact-checking is having a moment in the sun. He also said that he first discussed the idea of surfacing fact-checking articles with a Google executive way back in March 2015, so it’s been an idea at the company for a while now.
Alexios Mantzarlis, who run Poynter’s International Fact-Checking Network, also is seeing a big surge of interest. “I have no idea whether we’ll see a large bump in traffic from [Google’s] move — interest in fact-checking has been growing so fast in the US during this campaign that [the impact] may not be huge,” he said over email. “I do think this will have the greatest effect if it kick-starts an earnest and industry-wide discussion about what all media-adjacent tech giants can do to promote fact-checking.”
Ultimately, it’s all about holding the subjects of reporting accountable and fact-checking both sides of an argument. Kessler says that it’s not always reasonable to expect a single story to both give the news as well as fact-check it. “I always say fact-checking is a compliment to political reporting, not a supplement,” Kessler says. “If look at discreet statements that politicians make, it’s really hard if you’re a political reporter covering the latest speech and step back and say ‘that’s not really true.’ You don’t have a lot of space to get into that — but with a fact check, you can take that one statement and really put it under a microscope.”
While it’s a good step for Google to start highlighting fact-checking articles, particularly as the campaign enters its last month, these links aren’t going to be plastered all over Google’s search results. To find them, you’ll need to go into the “expanded” view of news stories on the Google News page. The News & Weather iOS and Android apps aren’t exactly the company’s most prominent mobile resource, either. We’ll be watching to see if Google expands the way it highlights fact-checking stories in the future, but for now they should start showing up in Google News today.
Source: Google
Google’s memory-boosted AI could help you navigate the subway
Modern neural networks are good at making quick, reactive decisions and recognizing patterns, but they’re not very skilled at the careful, deliberate thought that you need for complex choices. Google’s DeepMind team may have licked that problem, however. Its researchers have developed a memory-boosted neural network (a “differentiable neural computer”) that can create and work with sophisticated data structures. If it has a map of the London Underground, for example, it could figure out the quickest path from stop to stop or tell you where you’d end up after following a route sequence.
The key is how the AI uses its memory. The computer’s controller is figuring out how to use memory as it goes along — it’s learning how to get ever closer to the correct answer without being explicitly told how to get there. A typical neural network wouldn’t even have that memory to work with, so it either wouldn’t hold the information or find a general way of reasoning that translates to different circumstances.
This wouldn’t just be useful for navigation. You could ask the computer to identify relatives in a family tree using only basic knowledge about the relationships, or solve intricate puzzles with varying goals. All told, the very potential of neural networks is about to expand. You could see AI applied in situations where it was previously impossible.
Source: DeepMind, Nature
AIVAnet 