Obama tells tech community to solve encryption problem now or pay later | The Verge

President Barack Obama called on the tech community to build a safe encryption key to assist in law enforcement investigations, saying that if it failed, it could one day face a more draconian solution passed by a Congress that is less sympathetic to its worldview. The president said he could not comment on the FBI's current fight with Apple over its demand that the company build software to unlock data on an iPhone used by one of the alleged San Bernardino shooters. But he spoke broadly about the need to balance privacy and security, and warned that absolutist views on both sides are dangerous.

If the tech community does not find a way to help law enforcement in a narrow range of cases, he said, a future incident could spark a backlash that leads to less encryption overall. "What will happen is, if everybody goes to their respective corners, and the tech community says ‘either we have strong perfect encryption or else it's Big Brother and an Orwellian world', what you'll find is that after something really bad happens, the politics of this will swing and it will become sloppy and rushed and it will go through Congress in ways that are dangerous and not thought through," the president said.

Obama tells tech community to solve encryption problem now or pay later | The Verge

Laptops Vs Convertibles - The Verge

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."

When a young Tim Cook told a group of cross-burning KKK members to stop what they were doing

What makes a person a genius? | MSNBC

What makes a person a genius? | MSNBC

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

GOOGLE SURPRISED EVERYBODY WITH A NEW VERSION OF ANDROID - The Verge

The Verge

One of the FBI’s Major Claims in the iPhone Case Is Fraudulent | American Civil Liberties Union

"In the FBI’s court order requesting Apple's assistance in unlocking the work iPhone 5c used by the San Bernardino shooter, the bureau's first and most urgent demand is that Apple disable the iPhone's “auto-erase” security feature. This feature (which is not enabled by default on most iPhones) protects user data on a device from would-be snoops by wiping the phone after 10 failed passcode attempts. This protects you and me from thieves trying to guess our passcodes and access our data for identify theft, for example.

But the truth is that even if this feature is enabled on the device in question, the FBI doesn't need to worry about it, because they can already bypass it by backing up part of the phone (called the “Effaceable Storage”) before attempting to guess the passcode. I'll go into the technical details (which the FBI surely already knows) below."

One of the FBI’s Major Claims in the iPhone Case Is Fraudulent | American Civil Liberties Union

Wired called Trump 'Someone With Tiny Hands' in a story because of a rogue Chrome extension | The Verge

Wired called Trump 'Someone With Tiny Hands' in a story because of a rogue Chrome extension | The Verge

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". 

Nextbit Robin vs. Nexus 5X comparison - The Verge

The Verge

How to turn your old PC into a speedy Chromebook for free - A very good idea.

​Apple users, beware: First live ransomware targeting Macs found 'in the wild' - CNET

​Researchers discover what they say is the first real-world ransomware meant to hit Macs. If you've downloaded torrenting software recently, you may be at risk.



Apple users, beware: First live ransomware targeting Macs found 'in the wild' - CNET

Amazon’s smartphone flop was the best thing that happened to Alexa | The Verge

"Artificial intelligence is the future, specifically, voice-controlled AI that allows you to interact with a multitude of apps and services without using a screen; that’s the point that Amazon underscored yesterday when it unveiled its newest hardware. But the event wasn’t really about hardware. It was all about extending Alexa, making "her" available in even more places.



Of course, Amazon is not alone in this thinking. Other tech companies are making big advancements in consumer-facing artificial intelligence. The most familiar is Apple’s Siri. Microsoft has Cortana. There’s also Google Now, the super-smart intelligence layer on Android phones. However, all of these started out anchored to the smartphone. They require adoption of certain mobile operating systems, and in most cases still require people to be near something with a display.



Amazon’s Alexa does not. While we’ve all been busy looking down at our smartphones, Amazon has slowly been filling in the pieces of the smart home puzzle, the smart life puzzle. The original Echo is now a kind of spine for Alexa in the home; the Fire TV and Echo Dot are part of the peripheral nervous system; and the new portable Tap speaker is the first attempt at giving Alexa legs to roam. It’s simultaneously amazing, and terrifying (if you consider the security implications)."



Amazon’s smartphone flop was the best thing that happened to Alexa | The Verge

The Verge - Alexa Untapped (New Amazon Echo)

The Verge

The Amazon Echo Dot is Alexa in a tiny disc

Apple gets backing in FBI iPhone case from privacy groups, tech titans - CNET

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the first in what's expected to be a series of amicus briefs in federal court supporting Apple's decision to challenge a February 16 court order that demands the company write a new version of its iOS software to bypass the phone's security. Microsoft, Google, Twitter and Facebook, and privacy groups including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, have said they're also going to submit amicus briefs on Apple's behalf by the March 3 deadline.





Apple gets backing in FBI iPhone case from privacy groups, tech titans - CNET

Amazon Echo Dot Release Date, Price and Specs - CNET

Amazon Echo Dot Release Date, Price and Specs - CNET

Apple’s top lawyer turns to ring binder when iPad fails during US Congress hearing

Apple’s top lawyer turns to ring binder when iPad fails during US Congress hearing

"Apple’s general counsel Bruce Sewell reads from a paper copy of his testimony in front of the US Congress, after his iPad appears to fail. Sewell is giving evidence at the House judiciary committee hearing into the standoff between Apple and the FBI when suddenly he stops reading from his iPad and turns to a hard copy of his testimony. The iPad Pro was unused for the remainder of the lawyer’s remarks"