EU will watch Privacy Shield for a year before challenging

Earlier this month, the European Commission adopted Privacy Shield, an EU-US data privacy agreement. It allows companies like Facebook and Twitter to move EU data to US servers, all the while assuring Europeans their data is still as protected as it was back home. Critics have complained the new arrangement has many of the same flaws as the “Safe Harbour” framework it replaces, and EU data protection authorities had yet to comment on the final deal.

And they won’t — at least for a year. European regulators have announced that Privacy Shield will not be challenged until its first annual review, which is due next summer. This effectively gives the agreement a year-long stay of execution, at least as far as the 28 data protection authorities that cover Europe are concerned. After the year is up, the relevant bodies will either approve the deal wholesale, suggest changes, or file a legal objection. The first option, for what it’s worth, is very unlikely given collectively they were generally very displeased about the draft agreement.

The announcement doesn’t rule out the possibility of Privacy Shield being attacked in the interim. There are plenty of independent organizations that might choose to challenge its legality — the Safe Harbour deal it replaced was essentially taken down by an individual who proved it was not sufficient to protect EU citizen’s data.

Source: Reuters, BBC News

Australian Banks Challenge Apple Over Mobile Payment App Restrictions

Three of Australia’s biggest banks have lodged a joint application with anti-trust regulators to negotiate with Apple over gaining access to the NFC-based mobile payment hardware in its smartphones (via Reuters).

Commonwealth Bank, National Australia Bank (NAB), and Westpac have so far resisted signing deals to use the company’s Apple Pay mobile payment system, because they want their customers to be able to use digital wallets they have already financed and developed.

However, they don’t want to be accused of violating anti-competition law by jointly negotiating a deal, which is where the application comes in.

If the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) lets the banks collectively negotiate with Apple under the terms of the application, it would enable them to undertake “a limited form of boycott” in which they would all agree not to negotiate with Apple individually while the talks take place.

Apple currently only allows its own mobile payment system to access the NFC-hardware in its iPhone devices, which banks argue is an anti-competitive restriction that hampers consumer choice.

“This is about providing Australians with real choice and better outcomes,” said Lance Blockley, a senior advisor at Novantas who spoke to The Sydney Morning Herald on behalf of the banks.

“If successful, the application would have tremendous benefits for the entire Australian mobile payments landscape including for public transport fares, airlines, ticketing, store loyalty and rewards programs and many more applications yet to be developed.”

Apple Pay launched in Australia in November, but has since been slow to roll out in the country. The delay was thought to be down to issues Apple was experiencing negotiating fees with the nation’s largest banking institutes.

Three months ago it added Apple Pay support for credit and debit cards from the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (aka ANZ), the only bank in Australia’s “Big Four” that played no part in the latest application.

Related Roundup: Apple Pay
Tag: Australia
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Redesigned Firefox for iOS Claims Faster Load Times, Less Battery Drain

Firefox has released an update for its iOS browser that offers interface improvements and a faster browsing experience.

Firefox v5.0 promises faster web page loading times combined with significant battery savings, according to the browser’s development team. Mozilla claims up to a 40 percent reduction in CPU usage and up to a 30 percent reduction in memory usage, although it notes results may vary between users.

Aside from speed improvements and power savings, the main interface has seen a number of new additions. Top of the list is a new menu on the toolbar that allows for easier navigation and quick access to frequently used features – from adding a bookmark to finding text in page.

Mozilla has also tried to make tab management a less frustrating experience on smaller screens, with the introduction of a ‘Close All Tabs’ option and an ‘Undo’ option to easily recover them, as well as a simpler method of navigating open tabs.

Users can also now set their favorite site as their homepage, which can be accessed at any time via the Home button in the new main menu.

In addition, users can now search sites with a search box (Amazon, for example) using a new magnifying glass button above the keyboard.

To add a website to the list of search engines accessed from the new tool, users simply need to go to the site in question and tap on the magnifying glass.

Firefox web browser is a free download for iPhone and iPad available on the App Store. [Direct Link]

Tag: Firefox for iOS
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Xiaomi unveils Redmi Pro with dual cameras, deca-core Helio X25 SoC

At a media event in China, Xiaomi unveiled the Redmi Pro, its latest offering in the budget segment. Featuring a 5.5-inch Full HD OLED display, the highlight of the phone is the dual camera setup at the back, with a main 13MP camera (Sony IMX 258) augmented by a 5MP secondary camera that adds depth information. The additional camera is joined by a depth of field image processor.

The MediaTek Helio X20 SoC is intriguing, as it offers a total of ten cores in three clusters. There are two high-performance Cortex A72 cores clocked at 2.5GHz, joined by four Cortex A53 cores at 2.0GHz, and four additional Cortex A53 cores at 1.5GHz. Other specs on offer include 4GB of RAM, 128GB storage, 5MP camera at the front, dual-SIM, LTE with VoLTE, and a 4050mAh battery. The phone joins the Mi 5 in offering a fingerprint sensor at the front and USB-C connectivity.

The Redmi Pro will be available from ¥1,499, which comes out to the equivalent of $225. That’s for the base model with a Helio X20 SoC, 3GB of RAM and 32GB storage. The Helio X25 model with 3GB of RAM and 64GB storage will set customers back ¥1,699 ($255), and the high-end variant with Helio X25, 4GB of RAM and 128GB flash storage will debut for ¥1,999 ($300).

Sales will kick off in China from August 8, and the phone should make its way to other markets later this quarter. What do you guys make of the Redmi Pro?

Sony XD9305 4K TV review: Making a strong first impression

Brilliant though the TV world’s new high dynamic range (HDR) technology is, it’s also proving monumentally hard for current TV technologies to handle. Which is precisely why Sony has moved past “current TV technologies” and come up with something new for its XD9305 series: the Slim Backlight Drive.

The main trick of this new Drive is that it introduces unprecedented levels of local light control to the edge LED lighting systems favourited – for affordability reasons – by the majority of LCD TVs. Its trick is that it places two of the light guide plates required by edge LED TVs in sequence, rather than just sticking with the usual single plate.

This gives the XD93 twice as much potential for controlling the amount of light appearing in different parts of the picture. That’s a big deal at any time, but a potential deal-maker in these days of HDR, where the need for more localised light controls has shifted to a whole new level.

So how does it fare and is the XD93 (not to be confused with the full backlight array of its bigger brother, the XD94) the 4K TV to plump for?

Sony KD-65XD9305 review: Design

Despite using two light plates instead of one, the slim backlight drive has also been created to deliver one of those ultra-skinny designs everyone seems to want these days. The 65-inch XD9305, reviewed here, is just 36mm deep at its thickest point, and for at least half of its rear it’s actually far slimmer than that; not much deeper than your average 2016 mobile phone, in fact.

Sony

The build quality of what little there is of the TV frame is exceptional. Sony has even managed to find the space for a bit of showboating in the form of an injection of gold that runs through the centre of the XD9305’s outer edges.

Even the desktop stand is classier than most with its tasteful aluminium sheet finish and graceful angles, while the new wall-mount option (included in the box) cunningly adds almost no depth at all to the TV.

Connections on the XD9305 are as you’d expect of a high-end TV in 2016: four HDMIs, for instance, can handle both 4K up to 60 frames a second and HDR content, while multimedia support comes via a trio of USB ports and both wired and wireless network connections.

Sony XD9305 TV review: Android and YouView

These network connections can stream multimedia from your DLNA-enabled devices, or bring you into contact with the huge world of apps Sony TVs now provide courtesy of their implementation of the Android TV smart platform.

It must be said, however, that Android TV is hardly the perfect smart TV system. Its full-screen interface feels clunky, and it doesn’t provide as many customisation options as the best rivals. It also doesn’t feel very focused compared with the finest smart interfaces, seeming to mistakenly believe that quantity usurps quality where smart TV interfaces are concerned.

Android TV also boasts one significant content weakness for all its hundreds of (largely pointless) game, video and information apps: its lack of UK catch-up TV services. Fortunately, Sony has got round this by also fitting the 65XD9305 with the YouView platform, which not only brings to the table all of the big four UK catch-up TV platforms, but also lets you access their on-demand content via a brilliantly simple electronic programme guide (EPG).

Sony KD-65XD9305 4K TV review: Picture quality

Turning to the 65XD9305’s picture technology, the Slim Backlight Drive is not the only trick the XD9305 has up its sleeve. Also likely key to its success – especially in the HDR era – is its combination of a wide colour spectrum panel and proprietary Triluminos colour processing.

Plus there’s Sony’s previously impressive X1 processing chipset, which combines powerful control of all the key elements of picture quality with a vast database of picture source scenarios to help the TV first identify and then apply appropriate rules to whatever source type it happens to be receiving. This database covers and optimises the appearance of everything from the ropiest of YouTube feeds to the most pristine of Ultra HD Blu-rays.

Sony

To say the 65XD9305’s pictures make a strong first impression would be an epic understatement. Pushing the TV to its maximum capabilities with a selection of 4K, HDR, wide colour gamut Ultra HD Blu-rays, there are times where the 65XD9305 delivers the best pictures yet seen on an edge-lit LCD TV, and arguably the best pictures yet seen on any LCD TV.

Colours look ravishing for starters, as Sony’s Triluminos technology helps the screen serve up a truly dazzling combination of wide colour gamut vibrancy/saturations and mesmerising tonal subtleties that leave you in no doubt whatsoever that you’re watching the next generation of picture quality unfolding before your eyes.

Sony XD9305 review: High Dynamic Range

The irresistible dynamism of the screen’s colours also owes a big debt of gratitude to the impressive brightness Sony has managed to get from the 65XD9305. Its peak brightness just sneaks past the 1000-nit level recommended by the AV industry’s Ultra HD Premium specification, and this brightness adds volume and punch as well as subtlety to the colours on show.

Sony

The 65XD9305’s brightness in conjunction with the Slim Backlight Drive also creates a startlingly expansive dynamic range. This is particularly obvious at the brightest end of the HDR spectrum as Sony’s TV throws up peak whites and colours that glimmer and shine with an intensity old standard dynamic range video can’t even get close to.

The 65XD9305 is less emphatic in its handling of HDR’s extremes at the darkest end of the light spectrum, as you might expect of an LCD TV. But there’s certainly a big increase in the overall light range available to the TV for delivering enhanced shadow detailing in dark scenes, as well as that much more lifelike general look to images that is really HDR’s main raison d’etre.

While the 65XD9305 looks at its most spectacular with the HDR/wide colour content it’s pretty much being designed to deliver, though, it’s also mesmerisingly good with the “old” standard dynamic range content we’ve been living with for so many decades. It’s able to rein in its colours to match those of SDR pretty much perfectly, while the subtlety of its tones reminds you that while HDR represents the irresistible future of TV, SDR really has always been capable of looking pretty darned beautiful when it’s done right.

Another great strength of the 65XD9305 is its handling of detail. With native 4K content its superb colour and – for the most part – light handling helps it deliver one of the most convincing and extreme displays of 4K’s superiority over Full HD we’ve seen to date, unlocking the full potential of all those pixels the screen has at its disposal.

Sony XD9305 4K TV review: Its one picture weakness

While the 65XD9305’s pictures look good enough to make a grown AV fan weep for much of the time, though, they also, sadly, have an Achilles Heel: the Slim Backlight Drive can’t completely solve the seemingly inherent problems edge LED TVs have with delivering light on a sufficiently localised level to handle HDR’s light extremes with absolute conviction.

Sony

The issue is this: while it’s beyond dispute that the Slim Backlight Drive can deliver deeper blacks in the darkest picture areas – even in localised areas in the image’s centre – than arguably any other edge-lit LCD TV to date, the way the Drive essentially separates the backlight into a series of individually controllable but large boxes can lead to some really quite abrupt and thus more distracting backlight divisions.

In other words, where very bright HDR objects sit against a very dark background you sometimes actually feel like you’re watching a series of differently lit blocks rather than a single organic picture. At times you even feel that a less localised backlight approach would actually have delivered a more immersive experience – even though this more typical edge LED arrangement would not, almost certainly, be capable of reaching the same black level depths that the 65XD9305 can.

To put it another way, while the Slim Backlight Drive is certainly a promising and well-intentioned innovation by Sony, right now there’s work to be done to make it a really effective HDR solution to LCD’s ongoing light control issues.

Sony XD9305 4K TV review: Sound is slim too

Sony’s new obsession with slimness has led to it ditching the huge magnetic fluid speakers that used to adorn the left and right sides of previous high-end Sony TVs.

Sony

This is a logical decision from an aesthetic and practical point of view – but unsurprisingly it’s not a positive move where sound quality is concerned. Unless, of course, you fork out some extra cash and buy a separate soundbar or speaker system.

These predecessor TVs were arguably the finest sounding mainstream TVs ever… and arguably the least attractive too. The 65XD9305, by comparison, sounds sadly pretty average.

Bass levels are fairly limited and slightly cramped, the mid-range is clean but pretty narrow, and while there’s a strong amount of treble detailing, this treble information can tip over into harshness when the going gets tough. Certainly consider that additional sound system, then.

Verdict

There are times when the 65XD9305 looks like the best TV ever made – both in design and picture quality terms. Its handling of bright HDR/wide colour 4K content is really that good.

However, high-contrast HDR content reveals that Sony’s well-intentioned bid to introduce a new level of edge-LED backlight control ultimately creates as many issues as it solves, leaving us with the feeling that this new Slim Backlight Drive technology is perhaps a transitional work-in-progress rather than the finished article.

Also the 65XD9305’s quest for slimness leaves its sound compromised not just against the efforts of Sony’s own previous equivalent models but also against the best audio efforts of its current rivals.

Put all this together and the 65XD9305 often looks nothing short of incredible, but isn’t always the image of perfection.

3D imaging helps map tiny connections in the brain

Mapping brain connections is tricky — chemicals can destroy the very structures you’re trying to map, and an electron microscope can only tell you so much. MIT researchers aren’t daunted, however. They’ve developed a new 3D imaging technique that lets you map the brain at multiple scales, including at resolutions that aren’t practical with light-based microscopes. The new approach expands on a conventional chemical-based method of preserving brain tissue samples. If you flood the tissue with acrylamide polymers, you form a super-dense gel that lets you expand the sample up to 5 times its original size without hurting its structure, making it easier to study minute details. Numerous microscopes can study neural structures like synapses at resolutions as fine as 60 nanometers, which beats the 200nm you might get through conventional light microscopes.

Moreover, you can reverse and repeat the process “many” times. If you need a broader view, you don’t need to collect a new sample. That makes it considerably easier to trace brain connections, as you aren’t locked into viewing one scale the entire time.

MIT is currently focused on speeding up the imaging process, so this technique won’t be in use for a while. However, the team’s Kwanghun Chung notes that the technique is both “really simple” and uses standard molecular markers — it’ll be easy to adopt when it’s ready. Assuming everything goes smoothly, scientists could have a deeper understanding of the brain that might lead to more effective treatments for diseases.

Source: MIT News