Giant NYC Apple store brings controversy

Giant NYC Apple store brings controversy - Apple’s Grand Central Terminal Store Officially Opens, But Not Without Controversy. The tech giant's deal with Grand Central Terminal is raising some eyebrows. One of Apple's largest stores opened to the public at Grand Central Terminal in New York on Friday, just in time for the holiday season. On the east balcony of Grand Central, Apple products beckon harried commuters, curious bystanders and Apple devotees into the 23,030-square foot store, where more than 300 employees can assist with questions and purchases.

Futuristic bicycle can read your mind

Futuristic bicycle can read your mind - Ring My Bell: New Bike Reads Your Mind. Innovative "neurocontrollable" technology allows riders to shift gears just by thinking. "It's just like riding a bike" takes on a whole new meaning with a concept bike from Parlee Cycles and Toyota. That's because this bike isn't like all the others: It possesses the power to read your mind.

Even though the bike looks completely normal, the headgear is a dead giveaway. Like something out of a sci-fi movie, the "neurohelmet" comes equipped with plastic "tentacles" and metal sensors that are oh-so-comfortably pressed against the cyclist's scalp.

With minimal training -- and perhaps a little sweet talking? -- a cyclist can shift the gears on the bike with just a thought. One type of brain wave instructs the bike to shift downward, while another type causes it to shift upward. It definitely takes some practice, so until your mental powers are refined, prepare to be tossed over the handlebars, steered into a giant pile of leaves or flung into the side of a parked car.

What's novel about this mind-reading bike, however, is not the technology itself, but the way all of the technologies have been mashed together. Here's the equation: a smartphone + a widely-available app (which monitors the rider's heart rate, pace, speed, brain waves, and even cycling habits) + some geeky-looking neuroheadsets (made by Neurosky and Emotiv) = 21st century tech wizardry.

And for this specific project, a lightweight laptop was slipped inside the back of the cyclist's jersey so that it could "talk" to the neuroheadset, the smart phone app, and the wiring inside the bike.

Rest assured, there is a built-in failsafe, too: If the brain waves are ever misinterpreted, the cyclist can switch a setting on the smart phone app to manually control the bike.

While this "PXP" design will not be sold on the market, "neurocontrollable" things -- including future bikes, gadgets and even prosthetics -- will likely become more commonplace. In fact, Parlee plans to release a new road bike in 2012 or 2013 inspired by the PXP design.

What the bike cannot do is read the minds of the motorists that pass by your two-wheeler on busy streets. But we all know what those minds are thinking.

via: tpg

Apple's Siri irks abortion rights advocates

Apple's Siri irks abortion rights advocates - Siri's silence on abortion causes stir. Some users wonder why the new iPhone app won't answer questions about abortion clinics. Apple Inc is facing its first major controversy over well-received voice software Siri, as the cutting-edge iPhone search service ran afoul of abortion rights advocates.

Siri - one of the most popular features of Apple's new iPhone 4S - drew the ire of bloggers and the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League when it could not locate abortion clinics when asked.

NARAL's president, Nancy Keenan, dashed off an email to Apple chief executive officer Tim Cook in which she complained: "In some cases, Siri is not providing your customers with accurate or complete information about women's reproductive-health services."

But Apple said Siri's inability to pull up information was not intentional, blaming the flaw on the fact it was still in beta, or testing, phase.

"Our customers want to use Siri to find out all types of information and while it can find a lot, it doesn't always find what you want," Apple spokeswoman Natalie Harrison said. "These are not intentional omissions meant to offend anyone, it simply means that, as we bring Siri from beta to a final product, we find places where we can do better, and we will in the coming weeks."

Cook responded to Keenan with a similar statement, according to the group's website, which posted the email.

Apple uses a variety of online resources to search for information and relies mainly on review website Yelp for local businesses.

via: yahoo

Your Smartphone Is Spying on You

Your Smartphone Is Spying on You - 'Spying' app discovered on smartphones. A secret code gathers "unprecedented" information on Android, BlackBerry, and Nokia users. An Android developer recently discovered a clandestine application called Carrier IQ built into most smartphones that doesn't just track your location; it secretly records your keystrokes, and there's nothing you can do about it. Is it time to put on a tinfoil hat? That depends on how you feel about privacy.

The reason for this invasive Android app seems reasonable enough at face value. Even though it's on most Android, BlackBerry and Nokia devices, most users would never know that Carrier IQ is running in the background, and that's sort of the point. Described on the company's website as software to gain "unprecedented insight into their customers' mobile experience," Carrier IQ is ostensibly supposed to help mobile carriers and device manufacturers gather data in order to improve their products.

Tons of applications do this, and you're probably used to those boxes that pops up on your screen and ask if you want to help the company by sending your data back to them. If you're concerned about your privacy, you just tap no and go about your merry computing way. As security-conscious Android developer Trevor Eckhart realized, however, Carrier IQ does not give you this option, and unless you were code-savvy and looking for it, you'd never know it was there. And based on how aggressive the company has been in trying to keep Eckhart quiet about his discovery, it seems like Carrier IQ doesn't want you to know it's there either.

Eckhart first raised a red flag about Carrier IQ about two weeks ago when he started investigating reports that a software update on the HTC EVO 3D included "user behavior logging" code. 

The code had worried some geek bloggers when it showed up a couple months ago, but HTC and Sprint insisted that it wasn't much different than normal error-logging software and certainly didn't gather granular data like "contents of messages, photos, videos, etc." 

Eckhart wrote an exhaustive blog post about his startling findings -- CarrierIQ collected lots data, including keystrokes, and there way for the user to opt out "without advanced knowledge" -- and CarrierIQ flipped out. The company sent Eckhart a cease-and-desist letter demanding that he keep his mouth shut and threatening legal action. But after the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) took a look at the case and determined that Eckhart was working within his First Amendment rights, it backed off but still denied that they recorded keystrokes.

This week, Eckhart fired back with a 17-minute long video showing in painstaking detail how much data CarrierIQ collects, effectively undercutting the company's denial. It was even logging contents of text messages! Wired posted the video on Tuesday night and cemented its status "as one of nine reasons to wear a tinfoil hat." The magazine explains how CarrierIQ even undercuts other companies' security measures:

The video shows the software logging Eckhart’s online search of “hello world.” That’s despite Eckhart using the HTTPS version of Google which is supposed to hide searches from those who would want to spy by intercepting the traffic between a user and Google. … It’s not even clear what privacy policy covers this. Is it Carrier IQ’s, your carrier’s or your phone manufacturer’s? And, perhaps, most important, is sending your communications to Carrier IQ a violation of the federal government’s ban on wiretapping?

Oh, we're definitely in tinfoil hat territory now. CarrierIQ and the carriers have yet to respond to the latest claims -- we're doing our best to chase them down -- but if past smartphone tracking scandals are any precedent, they could end up answering to Congress.

Like many things in life, there are a couple of different ways to think about smartphone tracking. One way approaches privacy from a forward-thinking, technology-trusting and, heck, even progressive perspective. GPS-equipped smartphones are incredibly powerful tools that enables mankind to do all kinds of amazing things, thanks to the perpetual stream of data from the Internet. However, that stream runs both ways, and sometimes, the folks that build and maintain the network sometimes need to monitor your data in order to improve the technology. Who wouldn't want better service?

This brings us to the second approach. Tracking is creepy. In an Orwellian kind of way, it makes people nervous -- especially Americans -- that the government or the corporations or the system is closing in on them and stealing their freedom. Of course, not everybody feels so strongly about privacy, but as long as you can opt out, it's fine. Last week, Sen. Charles Schumer spoke out about a program at some malls in Virginia and Southern California that were anonymously tracking shoppers' movements by tracking their cell phone signals, and the only way to opt was by not going to the mall. Schumer did not approve. "Personal cell phones are just that -- personal," the New York senator said in a statement. "If retailers want to tap into your phone to see what your shopping patterns are, they can ask you for your permission to do so."

The CarrierIQ software is not dissimilar to the shopper tracking program. In fact, it's arguably worse since it follows you everywhere. In the age of social media, everybody is becoming increasingly aware of and often angry about the amount of private data companies are scooping up with or without their consent. This week, the Federal Trade Commission and Facebook came to an agreement that the social network must make all of their new programs opt-in so as not to break the law by violating users' privacy. 

Even Mark Zuckerberg admitted in a sincere-sounding blog post that his company had "made a bunch of mistakes" on the privacy front in the past. He went on to detail how "offering people control over the information they share online" was a top priority. This is Mark "Privacy is Over" Zuckerberg we're talking about here. With Facebook reportedly building its own mobile phone platform, wouldn't it be super ironic if people started defecting from the Android army and switching to the Facebook phone in the name of privacy?

Your move, Google.

via: yahoo

The secret to a smarter, smoother robot

The secret to a smarter, smoother robot - A Smarter & Smoother Robot Arm. Researchers have figured out a way to turn "moving like a robot" into a compliment. If someone tells you that you move like a robot it's not a compliment, unless you're doing the dance, just ask Al Gore. Robots have always been famous for making very rigid and stiff movements and there's a reason for that. While it's simple for a human to move their hand from the keyboard, pick up a cup of coffee, take a sip and put it back down, it's extremely difficult to come up with an equation for a robot to do the same thing.

The task of making a robot move more naturally may have scared away others in the past, but researchers at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the Laboratory of Information and Decision Systems (LIDS) have attacked the dilemma head on. By combining two innovative Algorithms they have built a new robotic motion-planning system that calculates more efficient and human like paths for robot arms.

And what does all this mean? If robots are ever going to interact with humans it's critical that they're able to make efficient and predictable movements, which you can finally start to see with this system.

via: yahoo

iPhone 4 Explodes on Australian Flight

iPhone 4 Explodes on Australian Flight - The phone started emitting smoke and a red glow, forcing a flight attendant to carry out “recovery actions” on the plane. The iPhone can do most anything these days, from giving directions to the nearest Thai food place to describing the traffic on your morning commute or allowing you to play a game of scrabble with your cousin who lives across the country.

But one passenger on an Australian flight discovered that the iPhone could do one more thing – self-combust.

During a Regional Express (Rex) flight from Lismore to Sydney a passenger’s Apple iPhone 4 “started emitting a significant amount of dense smoke, accompanied by a red glow,” according to a release from Regional Express. The plane was in the midst of landing when the incident occurred.

“In accordance with company standard safety procedures, the Flight Attendant carried out recovery actions immediately and the red glow was extinguished successfully,” the release stated. After landing, the phone was given to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau.

Instances of exploding iPhones have occurred in the past. In 2009, a series of stories surfaced about iPhones overheating and exploding, including one about a teenager in France who was slightly injured after his iPhone stated hissing and shattered. The European Union launched an investigation, but Apple insisted that the incidents were isolated and due to external pressure.

Apple released its latest version of the iPhone, the 4S, in October. U.S. mobile phone carriers sold out of the iPhone 4S in pre-orders, and Apple said that they sold more than four million of the new product just three days after its launch.

via: HR

iPhone 4 Explodes Midflight on Australian Airline

iPhone 4 Explodes Midflight on Australian Airline - Passenger's iPhone 4 explodes midflight. A flight attendant acts fast as the phone emits "dense smoke" and a "red glow" on an Australian flight. Apple’s iPhones are always among the hottest gadgets of any holiday shopping season, but for one passenger on an Australian flight, the phone was too hot to handle — literally.

While on Australian flight Regional Express ZL319 Friday, a passenger’s iPhone 4 (not the iPhone 4S, which is Apple’s latest model) suddenly started “emitting a significant amount of dense smoke, accompanied by a red glow,” according to a Regional Express statement.

The plane, which was flying from Lismore to Sydney, was in the midst of landing when the incident occured. “In accordance with company standard safety procedures, the flight attendant carried out recovery actions immediately, and the red glow was extinguished successfully,” according to Regional Express’ statement.

After landing, the iPhone was handed over to officials at the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. There’s no official word yet on what caused the phone to combust.

Exploding Apple products are rare, but explosions have happened in the past, mostly related to the devices’ lithium ion batteries overheating.

The European Union launched an investigation in 2009 after multiple instances of iPhones and iPod Touches exploding or catching fire midflight were reported in the U.K., Holland, France and Sweden.

Apple also recalled its first-generation of iPod nanos sold between September 2005 and December 2006 because the battery would overheat and “pose a safety risk,” according to the company’s website.

via: yahoo

Toyota unveils futuristic 'smartphone' car

Toyota unveils futuristic 'smartphone' car - Toyota unveils Fun-Vii concept, a rolling smartphone on wheels. Japanese automaker reaching to make its vehicles fun again. The Fun-Vii concept vehicle may one day greet drivers and change color based on their moods. Every two years, Japanese automakers turn the Tokyo Motor Show into a cavalcade of the bizarre with concept cars that resemble nothing else on earth. Meet the latest addition: the Toyota Fun-Vii, the car that surrenders to distracted drivers by turning itself into a smartphone.

Smartphone Apps Send Holiday Greetings

Smartphone Apps Send Holiday Greetings - Does the idea of buying holiday cards, gathering the mailing addresses for friends and family, writing personal notes by hand, buying stamps, addressing envelopes and carting them to the post office just make you hate the holidays? You're not alone. More people are skipping paper holiday cards -- or at least the part where you mail them yourself -- in favor of cellphone apps that create cards and send them by text message, e-mail or snail mail.

Steve Jobs' $4.6B in Disney shares go to trust

Steve Jobs' $4.6B in Disney shares go to trust - Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs' $4.6 billion worth of shares in The Walt Disney Co. are now in a trust run by his wife, Laurene Powell Jobs. That's according to a securities filing made Wednesday. Jobs acquired the 138 million shares when Disney bought his Pixar Animation Studios for $7.4 billion in 2006. With a 7.7 percent stake, Jobs' trust is Disney's largest single shareholder.

Jobs bought the fledgling computer imaging company from "Star Wars" creator George Lucas for a total investment of $10 million in 1986 and kept it going with his own money.

He later took Pixar public after the successful debut of "Toy Story" in 1995.

The creative executive behind the iPod, iPhone and iPad died last month at age 56 after battling pancreatic cancer.

via: yahoo

Google pulls plug on solar plan

Google pulls plug on solar plan - Google pulls plug on renewable energy plan. Search giant quitting non-core projects, including solar power. Google Inc. has abandoned an ambitious project to make renewable energy cheaper than coal, the latest target of Chief Executive Larry Page's moves to focus the Internet giant on fewer efforts.

Google said on Tuesday that it was pulling the plug on seven projects, including Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal as well as a Wikipedia-like online encyclopedia service known as Knol.

The plans, which Google announced on its corporate blog, represent the third so-called "spring cleaning" announcement that Google has made since Google co-founder Page took the reins in April.

The changes come as Google is facing stiff competition in mobile computing and social networking from Apple Inc and Facebook, and as some investors have groused about rising spending at the world's No.1 Internet search company.

"To recap, we're in the process of shutting down a number of products which haven't had the impact we'd hoped for, integrating others as features into our broader product efforts, and ending several which have shown us a different path forward," wrote Google Senior Vice President of Operations Urs Holzle in the blog post.

Google said that it believed other institutions were better positioned to take its renewable energy efforts "to the next level."

Google began making investments and doing research into technology to drive down the price of renewable energy in 2007, with a particular focus on solar power technology.

In 2009, the company's so-called Green Energy Czar, Bill Weihl, told Reuters that he expected to demonstrate within a few years working technology that could produce renewable energy at a cheaper price than coal.

"It is even odds, more or less," Weihl said at the time. "In three years, we could have multiple megawatts of plants out there."

A Google spokesman said that Weihl had left Google earlier this month.

Google noted in its blog post that it would continue efforts to generate "cleaner, more efficient energy," including procuring renewable energy for its data centers.

Among the other projects included in Tuesday's "spring cleaning" were Google Knol, Google Search Timeline, Google Gear, Google Friend Connect, Google Bookmarks Lists and Google Wave, an ill-fated social networking and communication service that Google had previously said it would cease developing.

Google said that in December its email and calendar applications will no longer work with Gears technology, which allows Google's software to work when not connected to the Internet. Google said it is working to create offline capabilities into HTML5 technology instead.

Google Friend Connect, which allows website publishers to add social features to their sites, will be retired in March for all non-Blogger websites, Google said. It suggested that websites use its Google+ social network instead.

Earlier this year, Google said it would "wind down" Google Labs, a website that offered public access to experimental Google products, as well as terminating products that let consumers monitor their home energy consumption and keep track of their personal health records.

via: msn

25 "Worst Passwords" of 2011 Revealed

25 "Worst Passwords" of 2011 Revealed - The 25 worst passwords of 2011 revealed. If you see any of your passwords on this list, stop reading and go change it immediately. If you see your password below, STOP! Do not finish reading this post and immediately go change your password -- before you forget. You will probably make changes in several places since passwords tend to be reused for multiple accounts. Here are two lists, the first compiled by SplashData:

1. password

2. 123456

3.12345678

4. qwerty

5. abc123

6. monkey

7. 1234567

8. letmein

9. trustno1

10. dragon

11. baseball

12. 111111

13. iloveyou

14. master

15. sunshine

16. ashley

17. bailey

18. passw0rd

19. shadow

20. 123123

21. 654321

22. superman

23. qazwsx

24. michael

25. football

Last year, Imperva looked at 32 million passwords stolen from RockYou, a hacked website, and released its own Top 10 "worst" list:

1. 123456

2. 12345

3. 123456789

4. Password

5. iloveyou

6. princess

7. rockyou

8. 1234567

9. 12345678

10. abc123

If you've gotten this far and don't see any of your passwords, that's good news. But, note that complex passwords combining letters and numbers, such as passw0rd (with the "o" replaced by a zero) are starting to get onto the 2011 list. abc123 is a mixed password that showed up on both lists.

Last year, Imperva provided a list of password best practices, created by NASA to help its users protect their rocket science, they include:

It should contain at least eight characters

It should contain a mix of four different types of characters - upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and special characters such as !@#$%^&*,;" If there is only one letter or special character, it should not be either the first or last character in the password.

It should not be a name, a slang word, or any word in the dictionary. It should not include any part of your name or your e-mail address.

Following that advice, of course, means you'll create a password that will be impossible, unless you try a trick credited to security guru Bruce Schneir: Turn a sentence into a password.

For example, "Now I lay me down to sleep" might become nilmDOWN2s, a 10-character password that won't be found in any dictionary.

Can't remember that password? Schneir says it's OK to write it down and put it in your wallet, or better yet keep a hint in your wallet. Just don't also include a list of the sites and services that password works with. Try to use a different password on every service, but if you can't do that, at least develop a set of passwords that you use at different sites.

Someday, we will use authentication schemes, perhaps biometrics, that don't require so much jumping through hoops to protect our data. But, in the meantime, passwords are all most of us have, so they ought to be strong enough to do the job.

via: yahoo

Google opens digital music store

Google opens digital music store - Google Inc has turned on the music at its new online store, aiming to wrest the lead from Apple Inc and Amazon.com Inc in audio entertainment distribution despite the absence of a major record label. Google Music, with more 13 million songs, will be integrated with Android Market, the company's online store for smartphone apps and videos as it plays catch-up with its rivals. Apple, Amazon and Facebook have to varying degrees integrated music into their core online and mobile products.

Google Music will allow the Web search leader to do the same by letting consumers access music from various Internet-connected devices and easily share tracks with friends.

But analysts said the lack of soundtracks from Warner Music - a major label whose artists include Led Zeppelin and Prince, among others - will limit the appeal of Google Music.

"They've got to get that catalog filled pretty quickly," said Mike McGuire, an analyst at industry research firm Gartner. "It's a launch, but it's kind of like a work-in-progress."

Google Music was unveiled at a splashy event at the Mr. Brainwash Studios in Hollywood, California on Wednesday.

Google has negotiated U.S. deals with three of the four major music companies: Vivendi SA's Universal Music Group; Sony Corp's Sony Music Entertainment; and EMI. It has also signed deals with the increasingly influential independent label group Merlin and London-based Beggar's Banquet label group, home to the year's biggest selling artist, Adele.

Analysts say selling online music is unlikely to provide much of a lift to Google's revenue. But they say Google needs to be in the market to ensure that its Android-based mobile efforts can match offerings from competitors.

Android is the world's No. 1 smartphone operating system, powering about 200 million devices worldwide. But without a music service, Android-based smartphones and tablets may not be as attractive to consumers seeking a product that offers a seamless media experience.

And with music storage increasingly moving to remote Internet servers in "the cloud" rather than on the device itself, companies like Google and Apple have a way to keep users locked in to their respective mobile services, said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis.

"Everyone is using music and media as a jail. Ultimately, this stuff is going to be stored in the cloud and it becomes harder and harder to switch systems," he said.

To help jump-start the new music store, Google said it will offer one free song for consumers to download every day.

Google will also allow consumers to share purchased songs with friends on the Google+ social network. The feature will give users of Google+ a "free, full-play" of songs purchased by their friends.

"Recommendations from friends are the single most important way that people discover music and we think that this feature has the potential to really transform purchasing behavior," said Zahavah Levine, Google's director of content partnerships for Android, at Wednesday's event.

Music executives said that even though sales have struggled in recent years, music usage has never been more popular on different types of formats like social networks and mobile devices.

Facebook, the world's largest social network, unveiled a tab in September through which music services like Spotify, Rdio and MOG enable Facebook users to share music. Amazon has also long been a major music retailer and has a music locker service

Earlier this year, Google unveiled the Google Music beta, which allowed users to upload their music to Google servers, and access the music from multiple devices.

Shares of Google, which finished Wednesday's regular session at $611.47, were up 72 cents in after-hours trading.

via: yahoo