Verizon Galaxy S4 update on the way with Knox 2.0 and other improvements
An update for the Samsung Galaxy S4 on Verizon has been listed on the Verizon support page for the device. The update will move the device to build number VRUFNG6. The list of improvements may or may not matter much to you, but for some it could be a saving grace. Among the list of things that have been improved is connectivity within messaging app, Bluetooth connectivity and Voicemail reliability. All three are pretty important functions.
Along with the improvements you will want to be on the look out for an app name change as well. ISIS Wallet is getting changed over to Softcard. The ISIS team felt it was important to change the name in light of the ‘other’ ISIS out there that has nothing to do with mobile payments. There is also MVD which is My Verizon Diagnostic, Knox 2.0 for enterprise and a kids mode stud in the widget tray for parental controls.
Any one out there see the update hit thei device yet? Head into Settings > About Phone > Software Updates > Ceck for Updates to see if it is available for your device. Be sure to have a stable Wi-Fi connection, more than 50% battery and a little time to kill before you start the install.
Via Verizon
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Sony’s ‘PlayStation Experience’ is a two-day public gaming show in Las Vegas
Sony’s holding a two-day PlayStation event in the middle of the desert, and it wants you to attend. Okay, technically Las Vegas isn’t the middle of the desert, but it’s certainly out there. What will said event entail? PlayStation social media man Sid Shuman says you’ll, “Sit in on in-depth panels, meet the industry’s best developers, score hands-on gameplay with tons of upcoming PlayStation games, collect free swag, and get a chance to purchase rare collectibles directly from their favorite game studios.” It’s kind of like PAX, basically, but all PlayStation. One more similarity to PAX? It’ll cost ya. $50 for a one-day pass, $90 for both days. If those previous activities left you still sitting on the fence about attendance, Shuman also promises, “an exclusive first look at what’s coming next in 2015, which I am told you will not want to miss.” Project Morpheus details? Maybe a PlayStation helicopter? Who knows!
Hey, if nothing else, it’s an excuse to fly to Las Vegas in December, right?
[Image credit: Sony PlayStation]
Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD, Sony
Source: Sony PlayStation
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‘Retroism’ heralds return of gaming classics from MicroProse, Accolade and others
Do you like video games? Have you been playing them for, like, 30 years? Well good news: that gum you like is going to come back in style! Okay, okay, we’re just really excited that Twin Peaks is getting a third season. But also, classic games from the likes of MicroProse, Accolade and Infogrames are being brought back to life care of Tommo and Night Dive Studios under the name “Retroism.” Starting today, Retroism is bringing back games from that trio of studios and “other iconic publishers,” and the initiative kicks off with Sid Meier’s Colonization, Pirates! Gold Plus and Covert Action.
Retroism isn’t exclusive to any particular platform, instead choosing to distribute via Steam, GOG.com, Amazon, Humble, and several others. And the two companies behind Retroism aren’t exactly new to the concept: Tommo relaunched the Neo Geo platform with Neo Geo X, while Night Dive Studios helped to bring System Shock 2 back into playable form.
Beyond this week, Retroism is aiming for weekly releases “throughout the fall,” both as individual games and in bundles. There doesn’t seem to be a defined pricing structure, nor is it clear if Retroism releases will arrive on various distribution stores all at once. Here’s hoping it doesn’t follow the Square Enix/Nintendo model of charging insanely high prices for nostalgia-fueled purchases.
Filed under: Gaming, Software, HD
Source: Tommo/Night Dive Studios
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Snapchat servers ‘were never breached,’ but your snaps may still be compromised (update)
Snapchat is a photo sharing service known for its temporary nature: you send a photo to a friend, a few seconds later the photo disappears and is erased. If you snap a screen of the image, Snapchat tells the other person. That’s the elevator pitch, anyway. A variety of third-party apps skirt around that temporality, enabling users to secretly save the images they’re sent — occasionally of the nude variety — and anonymous internet forum 4chan is claiming it hacked one of those apps to access hundreds of thousands of images. Worse, those images are allegedly tied to usernames. Yes, that means your images may be at risk of exposure. Snapchat can’t confirm the alleged leak because it didn’t involve the company’s servers if it did happen, but the company says its data centers are secure. Here’s what Snapchat told us:
“We can confirm that Snapchat’s servers were never breached and were not the source of these leaks. Snapchatters were victimized by their use of third-party apps to send and receive Snaps, a practice that we expressly prohibit in our Terms of Use precisely because they compromise our users’ security. We vigilantly monitor the App Store and Google Play for illegal third-party apps and have succeeded in getting many of these removed.”
First things first: don’t panic. The images from the leak aren’t actually online just yet, making the hack a claim at most right now. So, what allegedly went down?
4chan users, posting anonymously, say that the third-party service Snapsave was hacked. Snapsave is a third-party app for both iOS and Android that enables users to save snaps without the other person knowing. The posts allege that Snapsave uses cloud saving, and when it was breached, the cloud database was downloaded with approximately 200,000 images. Snapsave has yet to return our requests for comment, and 4chan says to expect the image database online by October 12th (this Sunday).
Due to the recent hacking of various celebrities and the subsequent leaking of images depicting said celebrities in the nude — which was dubbed “The Fappening,” a reference to an internet term for masturbation — some media outlets are calling this alleged breach, “The Snappening.”
Update: Snapsave rep Georgie Casey says, “Our app had nothing to do with it and we’ve never logged username/passwords.” Moreover, he says that Snapsave doesn’t run on a cloud setup.
A report on Business Insider states the service in question is known as “SnapSaved” (the same name, but in the past tense), a website that enabled Snapchat users to log in and save their images. “The service acted as a web client for the Snapchat app that allowed users to receive photos and videos, and save them online,” BI writes. “What its users didn’t realize was that the site was quietly collecting everything that passed through it, storing incriminating Snapchats on a web server, with the usernames of senders attached.”
The website “www.snapsaved.com” no longer resolves — as of this writing, it’s just a blank white page.
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds, Internet, Software, Mobile, Apple, Google
Source: 4chan, Business Insider
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Google Play on Android has its flattest design yet
With how many of Google’s core apps are getting the update to its new, flatter Material Design lately, the release of Android L can’t be too much further away. While we wait for that, however, the Google Play redesign leaked not too long ago is available for sideloading right now, as spotted by Droid Life. With it, the “What’s New” section’s been moved back to the top of the store and you’ll now be able to create device-specific profiles (like one for phones and another for tablets) for restoring a custom set of apps per gizmo-type. If you’d rather not wait your turn for the update from Mountain View, DL has the APK, while Android Police has a smattering of screenshots if you want an advance look of what you’re getting into. If you haven’t started a betting pool for when Android L will hit, now just might be the time.
Filed under: Cellphones, Tablets, Software, Mobile, Google
Source: Droid Life, Android Police
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Uber gets a failing grade from Better Business Bureau, but taxis do too
The latest scuffle between Uber and the taxi industry is, as you might expect, a bit one-sided. The Taxicab, Limousine and Paratransit Association (TLPA) trade group recently issued a press release stating that the Better Business Bureau has given Uber an F rating (failing), citing the service’s surge pricing and customer complaints regarding difficulties with customer service reps as the main faults. TLPA spokesperson Dave Sutton naturally sees this as leading to the ride-sharing giant’s downfall. “Uber’s unresponsiveness could easily contribute to or cause the company’s next tragedy,” he told Bloomberg. What that press release fails to mention, noted by Bloomberg, is that quite a few of the largest cab companies have the same dismal grade with the BBB. In its defense, Uber said that complaints that users make through the app are addressed on a regular basis and that taxi outfits are well-known for not addressing complaints of their own.
[Image credit: Getty Images]
Filed under: Cellphones, Transportation, Software, Mobile
Source: Better Business Bureau, Bloomberg
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Motorola Camera app updates, adds Android Wear remote shutter support
An update to the Motorola Camera app has landed on the Play Store today. The app brings in the usual listing for performance and bug fixes. However, there is a much more exciting addition that the joint owners of a Motorola device and a Android Wear powered device will be excited about. Now you can use your watch as a remote shutter.
This is just for Motorola devices and the Motorola camera app. If you use the Google Camera, you have had that ability for a while. Head to the Play Store and grab the app update. Give the remote shutter a test run and let us know how it works out for you.
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Google wants to bring its Android copyright battle to the US Supreme Court
Google and Oracle are still arguing over code at the foundation of Google’s mobile operating system, Android. Google this week filed a petition with the United States Supreme Court, which appealed a lower court’s ruling that Oracle can legally copyright foundational code. The decisions have gone back and forth over the course of the last four years: first a judge in California ruled in favor of Google, then an appeals court ruled in favor of Oracle, and now Google’s pushing for the Supreme Court to get involved.
But what are the two internet giants even arguing about? At the heart of Android are a set of Java APIs that Oracle is claiming aren’t available for commercial use without a licensing fee (approximately $1 billion). Google argues that the API code is functional — not a “creative work” — and therefore isn’t copyrightable. The case is of course far more complex than our explanation, but that’s the big picture (our own Chris Velazco goes into far more background detail right here).
Will the Supreme Court get involved? That remains to be seen. The two previous courts took vastly different perspectives on the case, and the case’s ultimate outcome is precedent-setting. Should Oracle win, the door is potentially open for many more copyright claims on API code. One piece of Google’s argument is that, had API code been copyrightable when Google started, the company wouldn’t have succeeded. Essentially, Google argues that if the foundational pieces of computing technology were locked away behind licensing agreements, innovation wouldn’t be quite so rapid.
Should the Supreme Court choose not to see the case, there’s not a lot Google can do. We could find out as early as November whether the Supreme Court will see the case or not. If it does, expect to hear a lot more from Oracle v. Google in 2015.
[Image credit: Getty Images/Flickr RF]
Source: US Supreme Court, Reuters
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Google’s Hangouts for Chrome app offers easier desktop chatting
Fancy using Hangouts for your desktop convos? Well, Google has a new option for you: the Hangouts Chrome app. The “simpler faster” way to leverage the chatting tool offers a condensed list of contacts and conversations in a single window with alerts that allow you to quickly get to the proper thread. It’s tucked neatly on the side and separate from the Chrome browser, so the option is always available. And as long as the app is running, messages will sync across your gadget arsenal. There’s video and voice calling too, as well as Google Voice support to handle all of your messaging needs in one spot. The new app is available today for Chrome OS and Windows mahcines via the Chrome Web Store.
Source: Google Chrome Blog
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Cartoon Network’s new app offers bite-sized content for kids
In an effort to beam content to viewers who are more likely to stare at a mobile device than a television, Cartoon Network has a new app that dishes out short clips of content. The Cartoon Network Anything app for iOS and Android packs 10 to 15-second snippets from Adventure Time, Regular Show, Gumball and Teen Titans Go with games, quizzes, puzzles and more sprinkled in. Variety reports that one goal is to lure the channel’s core audience back to its TV programming by promoting shows with the mobile software. There’s no way to control the flow of clips and other items, so kids won’t know what’s coming next. The idea is that every time little Joey taps on the app, there will be something he hasn’t seen before. Of course, there’s the opportunity for ad revenue in the future as well, which could take the form of branded video segments with the network’s characters. And in what should come as a shock to no one, McDonald’s signed on as the launch sponsor. If your kids (or you, no judgement here) are big fans of the CN, both versions of the app are available now via their respective repositories.
Filed under: Software, HD, Mobile
Via: Variety
Source: Google Play, iTunes
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