Google Maps Gets Cleaner Look and Orange ‘Areas of Interest’ Hotspots
Google Maps developers yesterday introduced some visual changes and subtle navigation aids for both desktop and iOS that aim to make it easier for users to explore the world around them.
The most immediately obvious visual changes include the removal of road outlines to make traffic and transit routes easier to delineate, as well as clearer typography for street names, points of interest, transit stations, and so on, making them more distinguishable.
Another, less obvious but significant change is the way Google Maps represents high density areas of interest – restaurants, bars, shops, and so on – which now appear as orange shaded hotspots on the map. As the video above demonstrates, zooming into an orange area brings more details into focus, allowing users to tap them for more information.
The new Maps also gains a more subtle and balanced color scheme to help users differentiate between man-made and natural topographic features, as well as identify places like hospitals, schools and highways more easily.
Google Maps is a free download for iPhone and iPad available on the App Store. [Direct Link]
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Review: AyeGear’s J25 Jacket Holds a MacBook, Two iPhones, Two iPads, and More
One of the realities of living in Toronto, Canada, about a two-hour drive from the nearest American city when traffic cooperates, is experiencing a distinctly four-season climate. Winter lives up to the stereotype of being bitterly cold, before giving way to a mild and rainy spring, and eventually a hot and humid summer. The warmth lasts for no more than three to four months, however, before the leaves turn orange in October and Starbucks brings out the Pumpkin Spice Latte.
For the past three months, I have been testing the AyeGear J25 Jacket to see how it holds up to those Canadian extremes, starting with a below-freezing, snowy day in early April to a comparatively sweltering 90º day in mid July. In addition to wearing the jacket around Toronto, I brought it with me on a recent trip to San Francisco, allowing me to test its convenience going through airport security and away from home in general. Ahead, find out if the jacket lived up to the task.
Fashion and Functionality
The jacket has over 25 separate compartments for storing portable devices, valuables, travel essentials, and general items, including six credit card and ID holders, two hand pockets, two chest pockets, two sleeve pockets, two smartphone pockets, two tablet pockets, two pen holders, two coin holders, two memory stick holders, two SD card holders, one back laptop pocket, and one passport holder.
There is also a Velcro-based earphone routing system along the neck of the jacket, an elastic strap that can hold a drink bottle, and an in-pocket retractable reel for securing your keys — or anything with a carabiner clip.
On my trip to San Francisco, I packed a tableful of items into the jacket with ease, including a 15-inch MacBook Pro, Apple Watch, two iPhones, two SD cards, EarPods, Lightning-to-USB cable, wall charger, pack of chewing gum, car keys, sunglasses, passport, boarding pass, charging case, portable battery pack, wallet, and loose change. In addition to all of that, the jacket could hold two iPads.
My immediate reaction after putting on the jacket was that, perhaps as to be expected, it was rather heavy. It almost feels like wearing a lead apron at a dentist office during teeth X-rays. Walking around with all of your electronics and personal belongings strapped to your body obviously hunkers you down somewhat, and wearing this jacket for an extended period of time can become rather uncomfortable.
The weight might be a worthy tradeoff for frequent flyers, however, as the jacket makes airport security a much less frustrating experience. Anyone that has stood in line at the TSA checkpoint knows it can be a tedious, albeit important, process: take your shoes off, take your laptop out of its bag, and place all of your individual belongings in the bins before proceeding through the metal detector.
When wearing the jacket, however, all you have to do is quickly take it off with your shoes, much to the delight of those waiting behind you.
AyeGear’s J25 Jacket is built to last in all weather conditions. It is made from a mixture of cotton (67 percent) and nylon (33 percent) that proved to be waterproof — water drops bead off — and wrinkle free. The jacket also has an adjustable rollaway zipped hood, a breathable lining, and removable sleeves to turn the jacket into a vest, making it useful for hiking trips or similar activities in warmer weather.
In terms of fashion, the AyeGear J25 is not an incredibly stylish jacket — but it’s not ugly either. As a 20-something who typically wears skinny jeans and a slim v-neck crew shirt, I found the jacket to be baggier than ones I normally wear. To be fair, however, the jacket serves a specific purpose that inherently prevents it from being more of a formfitting jacket that I might purchase from a fashion retailer like H&M.
It also looks much nicer as a vest, in my opinion, so give it a go without the sleeves and hood when possible or consider the cheaper V26 Vest instead.
Value
One knock against the AyeGear J25 is its price: £149.99, which is $198.75 in the U.S. or around $260 in Canada and Australia based on current exchange rates — and that’s after the British pound’s recent post-Brexit vote decline. The jacket is certainly convenient, but whether it is worth dropping two bills on is debatable.
As is often the case, a better deal can be found on Amazon, where the jacket sells for between $149.99 and $190. Prices vary depending on the size selected.
Bottom Line
AyeGear’s J25 Jacket is a convenient, multipurpose jacket that fills a niche, particularly for the outdoorsman or frequent flyers, but its drawbacks of being somewhat heavy and expensive should be duly considered. For most people, it may be wiser to save your money and stick with a traditional jacket and backpack combo.
How to Buy
The J25 Jacket can be purchased on AyeGear’s website (~$198) or Amazon ($149.99-$190) in small, medium, large, XL, 2XL, 3XL, 4XL, or 5XL. Free delivery is offered within the U.K., while worldwide shipping is available.
Note: AyeGear provided the J5 Jacket to MacRumors free of charge for the purposes of this review. No other compensation was received.
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Police Ask 3D Print Lab to Replicate Dead Man’s Finger to Unlock Phone
Police in Michigan are reportedly attempting to use a 3D model of a fingerprint to unlock a murder victim’s phone and reveal clues that could help solve an open case.
Fusion reports that the investigation is still ongoing, therefore details remain murky, but essentially instead of requesting that the phone manufacturer unlocks the murder victim’s handset, officers have asked computer scientists at Michigan State University to create a 3D printed replica of the victim’s fingers so they can do it themselves.
The victim’s body was apparently too decayed for a fingerprint to be directly applied to the phone, but the police already had a scan of the victim’s prints from when the man was arrested in a previous case.
Most fingerprint readers like Apple’s Touch ID are capacitive, meaning they use electric circuits that close when human skin comes into contact with them, which generates the image of the print.
However, a 3D printed finger doesn’t possess the conductivity that human skin does. So, to circumvent the problem, engineers coated the printed fingers in a thin layer of metallic particles so that the fingerprint scanner can read them.
Currently it’s unclear whether the method works, as the designers haven’t yet delivered the printed fingers to the police to attempt to unlock the victim’s phone.
Another potential stumbling block is that if the phone in question is an iPhone, then police may come up against a passcode screen, since newer Apple handsets request a passcode if the fingerprint unlock hasn’t been used within eight hours and the code hasn’t been entered in six days.
But if the technology is a success, then theoretically the authorities could use it on cases involving living suspects by applying for a court order.
Fusion notes that the courts draw a distinction between a fingerprint password and a memorized one. “Courts generally draw a line between the ‘contents of the mind’ (which is protected) and ‘tangible’ bodily evidence like blood, DNA, and fingerprints (which is not),” said Bryan Choi, a security, law and technology researcher.
So while a memorized password might be protected by the Fifth Amendment which protects against self-incrimination, a fingerprint isn’t. Indeed, in 2014, a court in Virginia ruled that a suspect can be required to unlock their phone using their fingerprint.
Therefore if a suspect is at large but the police have their phone in hand and their fingerprints on record, there’s nothing to say that the method could be used to unlock the device in the owner’s absence.
Choi argues that in this day and age, phones should be considered extensions of the mind and therefore protected under the Fifth Amendment and not just the Fourth Amendment (protection against illegal search and seizure).
“We offload so many of our personal thoughts, moments, tics, and habits to our cellphones,” Choi told Fusion. “Having those contents aired in court feels like having your innermost thoughts extracted and spilled unwillingly in public.”
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Edward Snowden Designed an iPhone Case to Guard Against Radio Snitching
NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden has helped to design an iPhone 6 case that detects if a handset is transmitting data when it’s in airplane mode.
The project was announced yesterday by design collaborator and American hacker Andrew “Bunnie” Huang, the founder of Bunnie Studios and best known for being the first person to hack the Xbox and for legally challenging the DCMA act.
Mockup of Edward Snowden and Andrew Huang’s iPhone case (Image: Huang & Snowden)
The concept for the case is described in a paper titled Against the Law: Countering Lawful Abuses of Digital Surveillance, which explains that the design is to protect journalists, activists, and rights workers from being tracked by governments.
The case features probe wires that access the phone’s antennae through the SIM slot to monitor signal transmission, while audible alarms and a display on the outside of the case inform users of their phone’s status.
Snowden and Huang write that using Airplane mode is “no defense” against radio transmission, which makes such a case necessary:
For example, on iPhones since iOS 8.2, GPS is active in airplane mode. Furthermore, airplane mode is a “soft switch” – the graphics on the screen have no essential correlation with the hardware state. Malware packages, peddled by hackers at a price accessible by private individuals, can activate radios without any indication from the user interface; trusting a phone that has been hacked to go into airplane mode is like trusting a drunk person to judge if they are sober enough to drive.
Concept design for the iPhone case (Image: Huang & Snowden)
The paper cites the case of American reporter Marie Colvin, who is reputed to have been tracked by the Assad regime in Syria and killed for covering stories about civilian casualties.
According to a lawsuit filed by Colvin’s family this year, the Sunday Times journalist’s location was discovered in part through the use of intercept devices that monitored satellite-dish and cellphone communications.
You can find out more about the project by reading the white paper at Pubpub.
Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.
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Apple Helped FBI Identify Alleged Owner of World’s Largest Torrent Site
U.S. authorities have arrested the alleged owner of the world’s largest torrent site after Apple shared personal details linked to an iTunes transaction that enabled federal investigators to locate their suspect.
According to TorrentFreak, Ukranian-born Artem Vaulin was arrested yesterday in Poland on suspicion of running KickassTorrents (KAT), which recently surpassed The Pirate Bay as the go-to site for unofficial copies of movies, TV shows, and music.
The U.S. Justice Department has requested 30-year-old Vaulin’s extradition on charges of criminal copyright infringement and money laundering. The key piece of evidence that led authorities to Vaulin appeared to come when Apple handed over his personal details after investigators matched an IP address used to log in to the KAT Facebook page with one linked to an iTunes purchase.
Filed in a U.S. District Court in Chicago, the criminal complaint reads: “Records provided by Apple showed that tirm@me.com conducted an iTunes transaction using IP Address 109.86.226.203 on or about July 31, 2015. The same IP Address was used on the same day to login into the KAT Facebook.”
According to the complaint, KAT operates in 28 languages and offered movies still in cinemas, as well as other content, earning significant revenue from advertising throughout the site. Investigators also reportedly posed as an advertiser to the site, which revealed a bank account associated with it.
The U.S. Department of Justice estimates KAT’s value to be over $54 million, with annual advertising revenue in the range of $12.5 million to $22.3 million. KAT reportedly helped distribute over $1 billion in pirated files, according to assistant attorney general Leslie Caldwell, who commented on the case.
“In an effort to evade law enforcement, Vaulin allegedly relied on servers located in countries around the world and moved his domains due to repeated seizures and civil lawsuits,” said Caldwell. “His arrest in Poland, however, demonstrates again that cybercriminals can run, but they cannot hide from justice.”
In addition to Vaulin’s extradition, the criminal complaint has also ordered the seizure of a bank account associated with the site, as well as the seizure of several KAT domain names. TorrentFreak reports that while the main KAT domain appears to be down, various proxies still lead to working versions of the site.
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iOS 10 warns when your Lightning port gets wet
Many mobile devices are water-resistant (some more than others), but they’ll rarely tell you when there’s a less-than-obvious danger. You might not find out that you’ve soaked something important until a gadget doesn’t work. Apple appears to have a solution, though: recent betas for iOS 10 will serve a warning when there’s liquid detected in your device’s Lightning port. Ideally, this gives you time to pull an accessory (and dry out your gear) before there’s any real damage.
So far, the feature is only known to work with newer iPhones like the 6s, 6s Plus and SE. We’ve reached out to Apple for confirmation of the feature and will let you know if it has something to say. With that said, it’s not at all shocking that Apple would go this route. It’s helpful to both the company and customers: you might rescue your device when there’s a close call, while Apple spends less time and money on repairs.
[Thanks, Kristy]
Source: Reddit (1), (2), EverythingApplePro (YouTube)
Apple Facing Class Action Lawsuit for Offering Refurbished Replacement Devices Under AppleCare+
Apple is facing a new class action lawsuit, levied today by customers in California who are unhappy that their iPhones and iPads were replaced with refurbished devices under Apple’s AppleCare or AppleCare+ warranty plan.
Filed by Vicky Maldonado and Joanne McRight, the lawsuit, first shared by Cult of Mac, accuses Apple of failing to provide replacement devices that are “equivalent to new in performance and reliability” as stated in the company’s terms and conditions.
Both plaintiffs purchased replacement devices under AppleCare protection plans and were given refurbished devices rather than new devices, which they claim is a violation of the aforementioned line in the AppleCare Terms and Conditions.
The Apple Plans purport to provide consumers with Devices that are “equivalent to new in performance and reliability.” What that phrase means is ‘new’ as refurbished devices can never be the equivalent to new in performance and reliability. Plaintiffs allege that it means refurbished. Refurbished is synonymous with the term “reconditioned,” that is, a secondhand unit that has been modified to appear to be new for all purposes relevant to this litigation.
“New” means a Device that has never been utilized or previously sold and consists of all new parts. The word “refurbished” appears only once in the AppleCare+ terms and conditions even though the printed booklet is 33 pages long.
The plaintiffs claim they were deprived of the “use and value” of their original devices when Apple replaced them with refurbished devices, suffering an economic loss in the amount of the cost of the AppleCare plans, the loss of value of their original non-refurbished devices, and the purchase cost and replacement cost paid to Apple.
Apple is being accused of breach of contract, breach of warranty, concealing information from the public, deceptive marketing, violating labeling requirements, and unfair competitive practices. The lawsuit covers all customers who purchased an AppleCare or AppleCare+ plan for an iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch after July 11, 2011.
The plaintiffs are seeking damages, attorneys fees, an order that would prevent Apple from replacing damaged or defective iOS devices with refurbished devices in the future, updated AppleCare+ terms and conditions, and an option to get a refund for a broken device instead of a repair.
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Apple releases second public betas for iOS 10 and macOS Sierra
Were you quick to hop on the test versions of iOS 10 and macOS Sierra? It’s time to start updating. Apple has released the second public betas of both platforms, and they’re not just adding some spit and polish. The new iOS 10 beta introduces a functioning option for using Touch ID to unlock your device the “old-fashioned” iOS 9 way, where resting your finger is enough to get to your home screen. If you lock an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus, you’ll get vibration feedback. And if you’re a health maven, you can opt to share your activity and workout data to help improve Apple’s fitness features.
The new macOS beta doesn’t appear to have as many tangible changes, although it’s still recommended if you’ve been trying the first public release. Whether you’re using iOS or macOS, one thing remains true: this is still early software, and you’ll want to think carefully before installing either beta if you either can’t afford to lose access to certain apps or just don’t like grappling with glitches.
Via: MacRumors (1), (2)
Source: Apple
T-Mobile to Offer Free Data for Pokémon Go Starting Next Tuesday
As part of its T-Mobile Tuesday offerings, T-Mobile plans to offer its customers free data for hit augmented reality game Pokémon Go. Starting on July 19, T-Mobile subscribers will be able to play Pokémon Go, which is something of a data hog, without using up their monthly data.
T-Mobile plans to provide free unlimited high-speed data for Pokémon Go for all subscribers through August 17, 2017. Customers will need to redeem the gift in the T-Mobile Tuesdays app between July 19 and August 9, 2016.
Ready to catch them all!? #TMobileTuesdays is giving you unlimited data use for #PokémonGo! https://t.co/NrFAxW3KYq pic.twitter.com/pPXxezGV0r
— John Legere (@JohnLegere) July 14, 2016
Next Tuesday’s T-Mobile Tuesday offering, which is Pokémon themed, will also include free Lyft rides up to $15, a free Wendy’s frosty, and up to 50 percent off all accessories at T-Mobile stores. 250 T-Mobile subscribers will win $100 in PokéCoins to spend in the app and five people will win a Pokémon Go hunting trip anywhere in the United States.
“This is what T-Mobile Tuesday is all about – thanking customers with hot, new, totally free gifts every week, and right now, nothing is hotter than Pokémon Go!” said John Legere, president and CEO of T-Mobile. “With the carriers’ shared data schemes, players could easily burn up the family’s data bucket – and then, hello, overages! At T-Mobile, we’re unleashing Pokémon Go so our customers can play free for a year. It’s gonna be a fantastic T-Mobile Tuesday!”
T-Mobile first unveiled T-Mobile Tuesdays last month, marking the debut of its eleventh Uncarrier promotion. T-Mobile Tuesdays brings customers a variety of weekly freebies, from food and movie tickets to ride-sharing credits.
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New Motion Camera App ‘Polaroid Swing’ Seeks to Redefine Photo Sharing
Ailing consumer electronics brand Polaroid has leant its name to a new motion photo sharing platform called Polaroid Swing which saw its release on the App Store yesterday.
Similar to Live Photos in iOS, the app lets users capture a one-second moment with their device’s camera, which can then be shared over social media or in the new platform’s Instagram-like social feed.
While its premise is nothing new, the quality of the motion captures is a step above that offered by typical GIF-creation apps, and records moments in 60 frames per second for smooth, crisp playback.
What’s also unique to Polaroid Swing is the way users interact with the shots. Tilting the device left rewinds the moment, while angling it right advances the capture relative to the speed of the user’s motion.
Floating the mouse cursor over a capture when viewed on a desktop, or sliding a finger over the shot on an iOS device, produces the same effect. Users can also embed Polaroid Swing moments as another way of sharing their experiences.
The app is the result of a partnership between the Polaroid brand and a Silicon Valley tech startup chaired by Twitter co-founder Biz Stone.
The developer team is comprised of former Apple engineers as well as the creator of Instagram’s original filters and logo, Cole Rise.
“Polaroid Swing has the potential to change the way we think about images, just like Twitter’s 140 characters changed how we think about words,” said Biz Stone in a press release. “People will start seeing the world in one second moments. It’s a genre-defining medium.”
Polaroid Swing is a free download for iPhone and iPad available on the App Store. [Direct Link]
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AIVAnet 