Technology Simplified

In the beginning there was Cupcake 2008, when pinch-to-zoom was a right reserved for iPhones and BlackBerrys were still the business, a new kind of smartphone hit the scene: the Android smartphone.  Starting at version 1.5 for public consumption, Android was launched on the HTC Dream (known as the T-Mobile G1 in the US), a QWERTY keyboard-packing slider phone. Based on a modified version of Linux, Android offered something very different to the iPhone: freedom. An open source Cupcake Unlike iOS’s heavily policed, locked-down operating system, Android arrived with the promise of open source everything. Google made access to the Android Market (now called the Google Play Store) freely available, and users could even customize their home screens with widgets, offering in-app functionality from said home screen, no app opening needed. With Android 1.5, codenamed Cupcake, a new way was born.  Android 1.6: Donut Is it an albatross? Is it a jumbo jet? No! It’s the Dell Stre...

New Year's Eve Times Square drone grounded due to weather, NYPD says A rainy New Year’s Eve in New York has some Times Square revelers ponying up to keep dry, while police are scrapping plans to deploy a drone to keep watch over the crowd for the first time. via https://fxn.ws/2SukAbP

By NATASHA SINGER from NYT Technology https://nyti.ms/2RpvZfM

By DAISUKE WAKABAYASHI from NYT Technology https://nyti.ms/2SsV0nG

Citi Research has joined a growing list of analysts to lower first-quarter production estimates for Apple’s iPhones amid weakening demand for the smartphones. Citi Research analyst William Yang cut the overall iPhone shipment forecast by 5 million, to 45 million for the quarter, reported Reuters . That’s a sting that falls in line with others such as influential TF International Securities Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who delivered a less than stellar iPhone forecast earlier this month. It’s Yang’s outlook for the 6.5-inch iPhone XS Max that is particularly gloomy. In a research note to clients, Yang slashed the shipment forecast for the iPhone XS Max by 48 percent for the first quarter of 2019. The cut in Citi’s forecasts is driven by the firm’s view that “2018 iPhone is entering a destocking phase, which does not bode well for the supply chain,” Yang wrote. Two weeks ago, Kuo predicted that 2019 iPhone shipments will likely between 5 to 10 percent lower than 2018. He also lowere...

Four billion miles from Earth, the New Horizons probe that recently sent such lovely pictures of Pluto is drawing near to the most distant object mankind has ever come close to: Ultima Thule, a mysterious rock deep in the Kuiper belt. The historic rendezvous takes place early tomorrow morning. This is an encounter nearly 30 years in the making, if you count back to the mission’s beginnings in 1989, but it’s also been some 13 years since launch — the timing and nature of which was calculated to give the probe this opportunity after it had completed its primary mission. New Horizons arrived at Pluto in the summer of 2015, and in its fleeting passage took thousands of photos and readings that scientists are still poring over. It taught us many things about the distant dwarf planet, but by the time it took its extraordinary parting shots of Pluto’s atmosphere, the team was already thinking about its next destination. Given the craft’s extreme speed and the incredibly distant setting ...

Some of you may be working on your 2019 resolutions. Want to try being vegan for a month, start doing to the gym again or stop stealing from the stationery cupboard at work because it's all getting a bit out of hand? Good for you. But, as we all know - hand on heart - giant companies are citizens too. According to the 14th amendment, corporations are afforded some of the protections of personhood. So why shouldn't they have to make some New Year's resolutions too? Here are the 2019 resolutions the smartphone giants should adopt. For their phones. For us. And for the world. Amen. Stop assuming we can spend half our income on phones One of the scariest developments in phones over 2018 was the flirting with the $1000/£1000 price boundary. Heck, Apple even sailed right across it with the iPhone XS Max . How about we get real, and realize that most of us can't, don't want to, or really shouldn't, spend this much on a phone? Sadly, this one is likely to happen as...

These days, it’s impossible to look anywhere in the tech world without seeing Google’s fingerprints. This was definitely still true throughout 2018 – even Microsoft conceded to Chrome’s web browser dominance .  However, with all the news that’s constantly flying around the internet about Google, it can be hard to pinpoint the year’s most pivotal moments. That’s why we’ve decided to dive into Google’s biggest moves throughout 2018 – with a bit of a look at the future, as well. Project Fi: all the networks It was only a matter of time before Google launched its own cellular service – it’s been running Google Fiber, an internet service provider, in select cities for years now. Google Project Fi has technically been running since way back in 2015, but it blew up in a big way this past year.  The way Project Fi works is that you’ll basically pay a flat $20 (about £15, AU$28) a month for all your regular cellular activities, like talking and texting. Then, you’re charged an ex...

The European Union will help cover the expenses of bug bounty programs for 14 open-source projects according to an announcement made by EU Member of Parliament Julia Reda. The projects that will receive funding for their bug bounty programs are 7-zip, Apache Kafka, Apache Tomcat, Digital Signature Services (DSS), Drupal, Filezilla, FLUX TL, the GNU C Library (glibc), KeePass, midPoint, Notepad++, PuTTY, the Symfony PHP framework, VLC Media Player and WSO2. The bug bounty programs are being sponsored as part of the third edition of the Free and Open Source Software Audit (FOSSA) project. FOSSA was first approved by EU authorities back in 2015 when security researchers discovered severe vulnerabilities in the OpenSSL library a year earlier. Third edition of FOSSA In her announcement , Julia Reda highlighted the importance of free and open-source software, saying: "The issue made lots of people realise how important Free and Open Source Software is for the integrity and reliabi...

By DON CLARK from NYT Technology https://nyti.ms/2Qfknr1

DHS investigates cyberattack which disrupted newspaper delivery for the Los Angeles Time, Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun Tribune Publishing first detected the presence of malware in its computer systems on Friday and then took steps to fight back, but it was too late and publishing was already disrupted; Matt Finn reports from Chicago. via http://bit.ly/2EYUg5R

The Los Angeles Times and several other major US newspapers, owned by Tribune Publishing CO such as the Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun, were hit by a cyberattack last weekend that led to major printing and delivery disruptions.  According to a source with knowledge of the incident, the cyberattack, which led to distribution delays in the Saturday edition of The Times, Tribune, Sun and other newspapers, likely originated outside of the US. Tribune Publishing first discovered the malware on its systems on Friday. The West Coast editions of the Wall Street Journal and New York Times were also affected since they are printed on the same shared production platform in Los Angeles. Distribution delay Back office systems utilised to publish and produce newspapers were disrupted by the malware according to Tribune Publishing spokesperson Marisa Kollias who explained that the financial details of its customers were not accessed by hackers, saying: “There is no evidence that custome...

Fortnite's Ninja was 2018's most viewed Twitch Channel, hands down For gamers, 2018 was the year that Tyler "Ninja" Blevins achieved a level of celebrity rarely seen in the industry up to this point.  via https://fxn.ws/2QbD9Q8

There'll be something new soaring among the fireworks over Times Square during tonight's New Year's Eve celebrations: a police drone. According to The Associated Press , cops plan to use a quadcopter to keep an eye on partygoers and help them respond to any trouble before it gets out of hand. It's the first time a drone has been used this way during the festivities. Three, two, one... Tens of thousands of people are expected to descend on Times Square to ring in 2019. Law enforcement officers aren't expecting any particular trouble, but the drone will give them an extra view of the action should anything untoward take place. “That’s going to give us a visual aid and the flexibility of being able to move a camera to a certain spot with great rapidity through a tremendous crowd,” said John Miller, deputy commissioner of intelligence and counterterrorism. A drone roaming freely in the dark could be dangerous, so the New York Police Department's craft will be t...

So the Galaxy Note 9 has been out for a little while, making the Note 8 old news. Right? Well that's what you would think. But the 2017 model is so incredible that it still performs just like a new model and not to mention it is so much cheaper than its successor. Samsung Galaxy Note 8 deals are definitely still well worth a look. And it's still getting cheaper! When the Note 8 first came out, EE had deals locked down tight but now there is a pretty good spread across providers, Although EE still does have some of the very best deals on this device - what else would you expect from the UK's fastest network. Samsung Note 8 deals are now under the £900-mark in total over the two-year contract and can go as low as £750, and our clear Editor's Pick now offers 30GB of data a month instead of 20GB. The Note 8 is not by any means a budget device, however. It's a absolutely massive  smartphone, not just in size but also in raw power. It's got the screen size and spec...

Chinese schools enforce 'smart uniforms' with GPS tracking to surveil students Ten schools in China have new "intelligent uniforms" that will track students' attendance and whereabouts with embedded computer chips.  via https://fxn.ws/2SraZT6

Photo credit: Josiah Bondy One of the key tech trends with cars is that the ‘elite’ features usually found in luxury vehicles has trickled down to everyday passenger cars that are more affordable. Lane-keeping tech, adaptive cruise, and even blind spot monitoring were reserved for the upper echelon only, those who could afford a Mercedes-Benz, a BMW, or an Audi. Ford started the break the mold when it introduced automated parking to the Focus, and even the 2019 Ford Fiesta – at a price of only $14,260 (about £11,000, AU$20,000) – now has lane-keeping tech. Customization for all The best recent example of that is the 2019 VW Jetta, a mid-sized sedan that costs $18,545 (about £14,000, AU$26,000) and went through a redesign recently. A new Digital Cockpit borrows heavily from the Audi brand (which is part of VW). It’s a 10-inch display above the steering wheel, showing your speed, trip info, and other info typically found in this location, but allows you to customize what you can see...

The iPhone SE may have been officially removed from the Apple Store, but the budget Apple smartphone continues to sell at some seriously rapid speeds. That's largely because the cheapest iPhone on the market recently had yet another price drop - and on this page you'll find the best iPhone SE deals in the UK. Following Apple's product launch back in September, it feels like the iPhone SE 2 is still no closer to being released. But that hasn't stopped tariffs falling and you can now get iPhone SE deals on contract for a mere £15 per month - that means around £400 over the course of the contract! The tech world rejoiced when the iPhone SE was released. Finally, a new Apple phone that doesn't require you to remortgage your house - unlike the iPhone XS Max ! It looks and feels exactly the same as the iPhone 5S . But instead of sporting two-year-old hardware it's fully up to date, with a super-fast CPU and graphics, and the 12MP iSight camera straight out of the i...

Breaking up (with Facebook) is hard to do. Here’s how Every relationship has a breaking point. Even yours with Facebook. via https://fxn.ws/2Am0qde

Instead of partying until the early hours, many of us will be spending New Year's Eve curled up in front of the TV this year, and this is especially true if you have young children at home. If you're spending the evening with the kids, you might be worried about letting them stay up until midnight in case they are overtired the next day – or maybe you just want some time to yourself.   Well, thanks to Netflix , you could get them to bed early after all. The streaming giant has released a number of kid-friendly New Year's Eve countdowns, which can be played at any time you want, fooling your children into thinking it's midnight.  Netflix and chill (literally) With 12 titles to choose from, you should be able to find a countdown that your kids will love this year. These include The Boss Baby: Back in Business , All Hail King Julien ,  Tales of Arcadia , Spirit Riding Free , Fuller House , Beat Bugs , Pinky Malinky , Super Monsters , Motown Magic , True and the Rainbo...

Does AI make strong tech companies stronger? 2 by mkbkn | 0 comments on Hacker News.

Note: Our weird and wonderful niche Linux distros roundup has been fully updated. This feature was first published in December 2011. Fed up with the bog-standard Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora and so on? Looking for a distro that reflects your individuality? In this roundup we've discovered no less than 13 of the quirkiest and most useful distributions that Linux has to offer. They include one distro which is the official, sanctioned OS of North Korea, no less, and an OS which is so light it will run on a PC from the mid-80s. Read on to find out more about each of these interesting distros. Before we begin, however, do note that not all of these operating systems are suitable for everyday use without extensive modification – so consider running them from a Live CD/USB or within a virtual machine, rather than installing them on a computer.  10 of the best Linux distros for privacy fiends and security buffs 5 of the most popular Linux gaming distros 10 best Linux distros: which one is...

Although the Samsung Galaxy A8s has yet to hit Indian markets, we can safely expect it to do so soon, given that the company brings all its offerings to the country, and moreover, its closest competitor, the Honor View20 , is set to come to India in a short while. Meanwhile, the South Korean company is busy working on the launch of its upcoming flagship phones, the Galaxy S10 and Galaxy S10+, which are expected to launch at or around the Mobile World Congress on Feb 25, 2019. And it appears that the company is also working on two other mid-tier phones, the Galaxy M20 and Galaxy A50. The M20 is expected to launch before the S10, but it seems that the A50 will only go official after the Mobile World Congress 2019 . Previous rumours that the A50 would pack a 5000mAh battery have now been denied; it seems it will pack a 4000mAh one instead. Additionally, the Samsung Galaxy A50 will support more than one rear camera, and the primary one will have a 24MP sensor. The device will be powere...

Aston Martin uses lightweight architecture and Mercedes-AMG power to create its most playful sports coupe yet. from CNET Reviews - Most Recent Reviews https://cnet.co/2CIbDX1

At RSA’s 2004 security conference, Bill Gates predicted, “There is no doubt that over time, people are going to rely less and less on passwords,” adding that passwords “just don’t meet the challenge for anything you really want to secure.”  A pertinent truth that is often forgotten when discussing the importance of authentication is that passwords should have been removed from the equation a long time ago. However, many companies do not see why they should protect their users by moving away from passwords; they do not see customer security as a sales point nor a part of their business practice. Meanwhile, regulators see strong authentication as a business to business practice and not as a ‘must have’ in the consumer market. As a result of a shift in awareness, regulations, and motivation in 2018 alone, we have more evidence than ever to believe this change will finally be implemented in the coming year, with many companies standing to benefit from its advantages.  Shift in ...

While the thought of a machine that can squirt out endless ropes of molten glass is a bit frightening, the folks at MIT have just about perfected the process. In a paper published in 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing , researchers Chikara Inamura, Michael Stern, Daniel Lizardo, Peter Houk, and Neri Oxman describe a system for 3D printing glass that offers far more control over the hot material and the final product. Their system, called G3DP2, “is a new AM platform for molten glass that combines digitally integrated three-zone thermal control system with four-axis motion control system, introducing industrial-scale production capabilities with enhanced production rate and reliability while ensuring product accuracy and repeatability, all previously unattainable for glass.” The system uses a closed, heated box that holds the melted glass and another thermally controlled box where it prints the object. A moveable plate drops the object lower and lower as it is being printed and th...

When you’re trying to build one of the best gaming PCs , to take advantage of the best PC games , you shouldn’t forget about the best PC gaming chairs. You don’t want to walk away from your gaming session crouching over like Igor from Young Frankenstein. With the best PC gaming chairs, you can bring your gaming and sitting experience to a new level. Because, at the end of the day, if you’re immersed in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey , saving the world from some cult, you should be comfortable while you do it. That’s why, now that the year is coming to a close, we decided to make a list of the best gaming chairs of 2019. Some might end up looking like your dad’s office chair, with all-black ‘real leather’ designs – others fully embrace the gamer aesthetic with RGB lighting and loud, clashing colors, making you look like futuristic race car driver. We will help you find the best PC gaming chairs on the market, so you can spend more time sitting down and less time shopping around. Because – ...