Saturday, March 12, 2016
Samsung Galaxy S7 review: This is the phone to beat - CNET
Samsung Galaxy S7 review - CNET
Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat - Quartz
Amazon Echo, home alone with NPR on, got confused and hijacked a thermostat - Quartz
"Earlier this month, NPR’s Weekend Edition ran a story on its Listen Upsegment about Amazon Echo and how the voice-activated assistant was helping customers extend the power of the internet into their homes.
But, ironically, the radio program triggered Amazon Echos in the homes of a few listeners.
The show’s host, Rachel Martin, explained in an update on the story:
Listener Roy Hagar wrote in to say our story prompted his Alexa to reset his thermostat to 70 degrees. It was difficult for Jeff Finan to hear the story because his radio was right next to his Echo speaker, and when Alexa heard her name, she started playing an NPR News summary. Marc-Paul Lee said his unit started going crazy too and wrote in to tell us this – let’s just say we both enjoyed the story. So Alexa, listen up – we want you to pledge to your local member station. You hear me? Lots and lots of money. Did you get that, Alexa?
Random things, like TV programs, have a tendency to set off Echo’s voice functions. It seems like it’s something that Amazon customer support knows about—and it annoys them too."
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Friday, March 11, 2016
Obama tells tech community to solve encryption problem now or pay later | The Verge
When a young Tim Cook told a group of cross-burning KKK members to stop what they were doing
"It's no secret that Tim Cook's moral character was indelibly shaped by his experiences growing up as a kid in the deep south. Specifically, Cook passion for human rights was forged, in part, by the deep-seated racism that Cook witnessed first-hand while growing up in Alabama in the 1960s and early 1970s.
During a 2013 speech where Cook received the IQLA Lifetime Achievement Award, the Apple CEO spoke openly about witnessing a cross burning first-hand, an event which he said “was permanently imprinted” on his brain and changed his life forever.
“Since these early days,” Cook later articulated, “I have seen and have experienced many types of discrimination and all of them were rooted in the fear of people that were different than the majority.”
Interestingly enough, new information relayed by Todd Frankel of The Washington Post claims that Cook as a young boy didn't just witness the aforementioned cross burning, but actually confronted the KKK members who were engaged in the activity.
In the early 1970s, he was riding his new 10-speed bicycle at night along a rural road just outside Robertsdale when he spotted a burning cross. He pedaled closer.
He saw Klansmen in white hoods and robes. The cross was on the property of a family he knew was black. It was almost more than he could comprehend.
Without thinking, he shouted, “Stop!”
The group turned toward the boy. One of them raised his hood. Cook recognized the man as a local deacon at one of the dozen churches in town, but not the one attended by Cook's family.
The man warned the boy to keep moving.
Frankel's full piece is an interesting read and illustrates how Tim Cook's childhood in Alabama, a place which is no stranger to turbulence, helped make him the man he is today."
The Pixel C Challenge, Day 11: We Interrupt This Program To Bring You Android N - Chrome Story
I guess that’s it… Oh, wait, did I mention the Pixel C got 25% cheaper!>?!!1 Yeah, I saved the best part for last. I was too busy being productive to mention it earlier. Out of the kindness of its heart, Google has decided to offer developers a 25% discount on the Pixel C. That amounts to $125 off the 32GB version and $150 off the 64-gigger. Said another way, you can buy a Pixel C and get the not-really-optional keyboard for free. What? You’re not a developer? It doesn’t appear to matter, as Google is letting anyone punch their email address into pixel.google.com/developer-discount with the promise of a discount code delivered “within a few days.” For the heck of it, I signed up and got my code in a matter of minutes. I am not a developer. Nor am I in the market for another Pixel C, but it wouldn’t surprise me if this is just a somewhat silent discount on a product that too-few people bought at launch.
Which brings us to the critical question: Why, oh why, did Google bother to launch the Pixel C before it’s productivity potential could be fully realized? The Pixel C was very obviously rushed to market with software that was feature-incomplete and extremely buggy. Early reviews blasted the C for it’s software derps and keyboard connectivity issues. They also laughed it out of the room for claiming to be a productivity device without the (real or imagined) Holy Grail of productivity features, the mystical multi-window support. Was Google desperate to put the C on sale in time for the holiday shopping season? If so, that was a dumb call. If more than 10,000 Pixel Cs saw the light of day before Christmas, I’ll eat my mousepad. And, who in their right mind would buy it after reading any of the initial reviews? I am not in my right mind, so I, of course, am exempt from the question.
Had the Pixel C been announced in tandem with the new productivity features in Android N, that would have been something to blog home about. The damage has been done, however, and I don’t think v1.0 of the Pixel C will ever be able to recover in the marketplace. That’s fine by me, but with a new, lower price point and software that finally deserves to run on hardware this good… Let’s just say if you’ve made it to the end of this article, you and the Pixel C were probably made for each other. I doubt you’ll be disappointed. The future for the Pixel C is now, and the future is bright.
The Pixel C Challenge, Day 11: We Interrupt This Program To Bring You Android N - Chrome Story
Wednesday, March 09, 2016
One of the FBI’s Major Claims in the iPhone Case Is Fraudulent | American Civil Liberties Union
Tuesday, March 08, 2016
I Have A Theory About The Galaxy Note 6, Android N & Google’s ChromeOS | Know Your Mobile
I Have A Theory About The Galaxy Note 6, Android N & Google’s ChromeOS | Know Your Mobile
“We are determined to push the competitive edge in premium storage line-ups – OEM NVMe SSDs, external SSDs, and UFS – by moving aggressively to enhance performance and capacity in all three markets.” said Joo Sun Choi, executive vice president, Memory Sales and Marketing, Samsung told, according to International Business Times.
So… lots of memory and lots of storage. And 6GB really is an INSANE amount of memory for a smartphone, even by Samsung’s and Android’s usual standards. And this got me thinking - perhaps Samsung is cooking up something a little bit different for this year’s Galaxy Note release.
This is very much speculation, however, so please do not take this is fact; it’s merely a set of musings on my part about something that could, potentially, be very cool if (BIG if) two separate rumours turn out to be true".
Monday, March 07, 2016
Apple users, beware: First live ransomware targeting Macs found 'in the wild' - CNET
Apple users, beware: First live ransomware targeting Macs found 'in the wild' - CNET