Verizon HTC One Launch Reportedly Delayed Until August 15

The HTC's fabulous flagship, the One, will be launching on Verizon Wireless a little later than expected. Early rumors were pointing to an August 1st release date, but a report from Droid-Life is saying the launch has been pushed until August 15th. The blog has posted what seems to be an internal document that talks about the late launch date. There are no confirmed reports from Verizon as of this time. Unfortunately, when the HTC One does come out, the marketplace will be crowded, as the Moto X, LG G2, and possibly Apple's budget iPhone. The leaked document is below:

10 More Cities Are Lit Up With AT&T 4G LTE

It appears that AT&T is trying to live up to it's name via its commercials as "America's Fastest 4G LTE Network" by adding ten more cities to its line up today. I still think that Verizon ranks above all. Lucky cities are listed below.

• Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts


• Durant, Oklahoma


• Enid, Oklahoma


• Ardmore, Oklahoma


• Arkadelphia, Arkansas


• Russellville, Arkansas


• Ponca City, Oklahoma


• Charleston, West Virginia


• Cedartown, Georgia


• Rome, Georgia

Starbucks Brings Wireless Charging to its Coffee Shops

After a test in Boston, Starbucks is bringing wireless phone charging to ten coffee shops in Silicon Valley next month.Starbucks is bringing wireless cellphone charging to a handful of coffee shops in Silicon Valley next month.

Starbucks is hoping to jumpstart the wireless charging industry as it did with WiFi over ten years ago.

For both tests, Boston and Silicon Valley, Starbucks is using technology compatible with the  Power Matters Alliance, one of the three wireless charging standards.

Starbucks has partnered with Duracell Powermat, a key product behind the PMA standard. The main competitor, is the Qi standard, which AT&T and several tech companies. Since few people have charging sleeves, Starbucks is planning on giving away charging sleeves to frequent customers.

Facebook Unlocks Embeddable Posts Starting With Major News Outlets

Facebook unveiled Embedded Posts today, allowing anyone to place widgets on a page that contains images, links, update text and even clickable hashtags. This feature is rolling out slowly, with CNN, Huffington Post, Bleacher Report, PEOPLE and Mashable the first to have it turned on for their accounts. Facebook promises that broader availability will be coming soon, but it may be awhile before personal accounts can start embedding public posts all over the web.

Just When You Thought the NSA Was Done: X-Keyscore Spying Project Revealed

A new NSA program, named X-Keyscore was leaked today. This project can give an NSA analyst access to almost everything a citizen does on the Internet.

When revealing PRISM, Edward Snowden claimed all he needed as an NSA operative was an email address to wiretap virtually anyone. As Edward Snowden said to the Guardian on June 10, “I, sitting at my desk could wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email.” He was talking about the X-Keyscore project.

This system is available for use by NSA analysts and does not require a warrant. The "warranting procedure" is that you request data on certain individuals. X-Keyscore will keyword search data beginning and ending in the US. The system can search social media data as well as Internet sites.

The data searched is not permanent, due to that the system gathers billions of records a day. The databases can simply not hold all of these records, so every few days, the databases empty, and the process begins all over again. The NSA claims that these searches are aimed completely at overseas targets, and not at American citizens.

“X-Keyscore is used as a part of NSA’s lawful foreign signals intelligence collection system,” the NSA said to the Guardian. “Allegations of widespread, unchecked analyst access to NSA collection data are simply not true.”

You can check out the full report over at the Guardian.

[gallery ids="879,885,884"]

 

Google Will Soon Power Starbucks WiFi

Today, Google has announced it will be teaming up with Google to bring 7,00 of its coffee shops faster WiFi. This new partnership will have Google replace AT&T as the official provider of WiFi, in store. This will offer customers much faster WiFi speeds.
For Starbucks stores in Google fiber regions, Google will wire up the coffee houses with the lightning fast internet. The roll out will begin this August and will take approximately 18 months. The SSID of the network will also change from "attwifi" to "GoogleStarbucks".

iPhone 5C Case Hits Amazon By Elago Designs

Are you going to be getting the iPhone 5C? If so, you may want to preorder your case on Amazon today. Elago Design has begun to sell a slim fit case for $24.99, and will ship on August 23. The ship date is most likely weeks before the iPhone even comes out. The cases are available in black, white, and indigo. All come with an "HD Professional Extreme" screen protector. This design fits the leaked parts from the rumor mills perfectly. Hint hint, wink wink?

In Moving to the Cloud, NASA Leaves Major Security Holes

NASA appears to be having issues moving to the cloud. In a review, the space agency realized that several cloud initiatives were low on security. Some sections of its cloud even left sensitive information at risk. Looking at its five cloud contracts, none of them even came close to meeting the guidelines it set forth for datas security.
NASA is considering have an outpost to manage its cloud and security. This would be critical as NASA claims it wants to have 75% of new IT programs to run in the cloud.

Apple iOS 7 Beta 4 Released

After a massive developer center overhaul, Apple has released iOS 7 Beta 4. The new firmware is available OTA today as well as through the Dev Center. See below for improvements.

iOS 7 Beta 4 Changelog:

Notes and Known Issues

The following issues relate to using iOS SDK 7.0 to develop code.

Address Book Notes

Privacy support for the AddressBookUI framework is reenabled for apps linked against the iOS 7 SDK. Apps linked against older SDKs are not changed. If your app uses any of the Address Book view controllers, you should verify that it still behaves as expected.

AirDrop

Notes

AirDrop in iOS 7 Seed 2 or later is not compatible with AirDrop in iOS 7 Seed 1. Contacts Only support requires that:

You are logged in to iCloud.

The sender and receiver have each other’s Apple ID email addresses in Contacts on their devices.

Known Issues

Contact Only currently requires that you have an active Internet connection.

The App Store should support the ability to find an app capable of opening a received document based on the document’s Uniform Type Identifier (UTI). Currently, just a blank screen is displayed.

AV Foundation Notes

AVCaptureSession now uses your app’s AVAudioSession by default.

Calendar

Fixed in Seed 4

iCloud calendar events may not sync through fetch, push, or manual refresh as expected. iCloud calendars or reminders may be duplicated after adding new events.

Car Display

Known Issues

Support for Car Display will be provided once compatible systems are available.

Contacts



Fixed in Seed 4

Some high-resolution photos will not sync (via iCloud and other services) when set as a Contact’s Caller ID photo.

Core Animation Notes

When the UIViewGroupOpacity key is not present, the default value is now YES. The default was previously NO.

This means that subviews of a transparent view will first be composited onto that transparent view, then the precomposited subtree will be drawn as a whole onto the background. A NO setting results in less expensive, but also less accurate, compositing: each view in the transparent subtree is composited onto what’s underneath it, according to the parent’s opacity, in the normal painter’s algorithm order.

Exchange

Notes

The Exchange DeviceIdentifier has been changed back to the behavior of iOS 6 where it uses the serial number.

Fonts

Notes

Font line heights have changed from previous seeds. If you had previously manually aligned your font, it may move slightly up vertically with this seed.

Foundation Notes

An NSMetadataQuery with ubiquitous scope can now use kMDItemContentTypeTree in predicates. For example:

NSPredicate *p = [NSComparisonPredicate

predicateWithLeftExpression:[NSExpression

expressionForKeyPath:@"kMDItemContentTypeTree"]

rightExpression:[NSExpression

expressionForConstantValue:@"public.rtf"]

modifier: NSAnyPredicateModifier

type:NSLikePredicateOperatorType

options:0];

When called on results returned by queries with ubiquitous scopes, -[NSMetadataItem valueForAttribute:NSMetadataItemDisplayNameKey] now produces the same value as -



[NSURL getResourceValue: forKey: NSURLLocalizedNameKey], matching nonubiquitous queries.

iCloud Notes

If you use iCloud Keychain with recovery, you may see a dialog indicating recovery has been disabled due to a server change. This is intentional. To reenable functionality, follow the instructions in the notification. If you see multiple alerts or observe issues with reenabling recovery, please file a bug report.

iCloud Keychain in iOS 7 Seed 3 or later is not backward compatible with iOS 7 Seed 2 or OS X Mavericks Seed 2.

If you had iCloud Keychain and/or Keychain Restore enabled from iOS 7 Seed 2, both features are disabled upon updating to iOS 7 Seed 3 or later.

After updating to iOS 7 Seed 3 or later, go to Settings > iCloud > Keychain and reenable iCloud Keychain on your devices.

See OS X v10.9 Release Notes for more details.

Activation Lock, a new feature of Find My iPhone, is turned on automatically when Find My iPhone is enabled on any device running iOS 7. Activation Lock requires users to enter their Apple ID and password to turn off Find My iPhone, sign out of iCloud, erase the device, or reactivate the device after an erase. It’s important to do one of the following before transferring a device to a new user:

Sign out of iCloud.

Turn off Activation Lock in Settings > iCloud > Find My iPhone.

Fixed in Seed 4

Users who have a single device with iCloud Keychain on will not be presented with the correct iCloud Keychain setup screens after restoring from a backup.

Users signing out of iCloud by deleting their iCloud account, erasing all contents and settings, or erasing the device via Find My iPhone and signing back in will not be presented with the correct iCloud Keychain setup screens.

Credit cards deleted in Safari Settings > AutoFill are removed from the device, but not from other devices.

Sometimes when you disable iCloud Keychain you may not be able to reenable it.

Keychains are not synced among devices when they are on a wireless network with WEP security.

When setting up iCloud Keychain in Setup Assistant on iPhone 4 and iPhone 4s, the keyboard covers the iCloud Security Code entry field and the Advanced Options link.

Nonpurchased ePubs and PDFs will not be restored when iCloud-restoring an iOS 7 device with a pre-iOS 7 backup. Purchased content will be restored without issue.

Known Issues

Voice Memos are not restored from iCloud Backups.

Workaround: Make sure to sync Voice Memos off of your device before restoring from iCloud.



Users in Switzerland, France, Spain, Germany, Poland, Finland, and possibly some other countries, will be unable to restore their keychains using phone number validation.

Workaround: Use Random Security Code.

MapKit Notes

If the calls to renderInContext on the layer backing an MKMapView are made off the main thread, they should be eliminated or moved to the main thread. Failure to do so can cause an app crash. Instead of using renderInContext, use the new MKMapSnapshotter APIs.

Media

Notes

iOS now remembers the last used media app across reboot and app crashes. Media apps that can receive remote control events should be prepared to be launched in the background and potentially receive a remote control event to begin playback. Additionally, it’s important that media apps monitor and handle the media server reset event, since the media app may receive a remote request to resume playback after a reset. Notifications to monitor these media server events are available in AVAudioSession and proper handling is described in General recommendations for handling kAudioSessionProperty_ServerDied.

Multipeer Connectivity Notes

Many updates to the MCSession APIs are included in this seed. The APIs now function as they were presented at WWDC. Major changes and enhancements include:

The following new method on MCSession has been implemented:

This delegate method has been implemented:

The following new method on MCSession has been implemented:

- (NSOutputStream *)startStreamWithName:(NSString *)streamName toPeer:(MCPeerID

*)peerID error:(NSError **)error

- (void)session:(MCSession *)session didReceiveStream:(NSInputStream *)stream

withName:(NSString *)streamName fromPeer:(MCPeerID *)peerID

- (NSProgress *)sendResourceAtURL:(NSURL *)resourceURL withName:(NSString

*)resourceName toPeer:(MCPeerID *)peerID withCompletionHandler:(void(^)(NSError

*error))completionHandler

The delegate method to start receiving a resource from remote peer has been implemented as:

- (void)session:(MCSession *)session didStartReceivingResourceWithName:(NSString

The delegate method to finish receiving a resource from remote peer and save the content in a temporary location is implemented as:

MCAdvertiserAssistant is a convenience class for implementing an Advertiser, which handles invitations and connections to an MCSession.

MCSession has a new initWithPeer: method.

sendResource has added “with” to the completionHandler.

The timeout has been removed from connectPeer:withNearbyConnectionData.

For more information on these APIs, watch the video for WWDC 2013 Session 708, “Nearby Networking with Multipeer Connectivity.”

Multitasking

Notes

The policy for the task completion API has changed back to match the iOS 6 behavior, but the time limit for task completion has decreased from 10 minutes in iOS 6.

Networking Fixed in Seed 4

All NSURL session tasks now start suspended rather than running. This allows you to set up their state before the task is started.

Notes

Cellular fallback is a technology that will attempt to connect over the cellular interface when a connection over the Wi-Fi interface does not succeed. There are a number of cases where connection failures may occur over Wi-Fi, such as a cable modem in need of a reboot or a firewall that blocks access to certain resources.

If your app restricts network operations over the cellular network, verify that your code is using the proper API to implement that policy.

For example, if your app watches SCNetworkReachability for the kSCNetworkReachabilityFlagsIsWWAN to monitor when Wi-Fi is available, it may not behave correctly under cellular fallback.

If an app uses this method and then attempts to connect, thinking it will get a connection over Wi-

- (void)session:(MCSession *)session didFinishReceivingResourceWithName:(NSString

*)resourceName fromPeer:(MCPeerID *)peerID atURL:(NSURL *)localURL withError:

(NSError *)error

Note: The app is responsible for moving the file to a permanent location within its sandbox.

*)resourceName fromPeer:(MCPeerID *)peerID withProgress:(NSProgress *)progress



Fi, the app may inadvertently end up with a connection over the cellular network. The lack of the kSCNetworkReachabilityFlagsIsWWAN is not a guarantee that your connection will not go over cellular. If your code needs to enforce that a connection not go over cellular, it needs to specify that when making a networking request.

Instead, for CFNetwork code using CFSocketStream, CFHTTPStream, or similar APIs, set the kCFStreamPropertyNoCellular property to true on the CF object before connecting.

For NSURLRequests, call [request setAllowsCellularAccess: false].

In addition to making sure that your code will never be connected over cellular because of cellular fallback, this call ensures that your code will never be connected over cellular because of the VPN or convoluted routing problems (connecting to IPv6 over cellular because only IPv4 is available over Wi-Fi, etc.).

To verify that your app is behaving properly, you should test against a broken Wi-Fi network. The easiest way to set up a broken Wi-Fi network is to set up an Apple AirPort Base Station or other Wi- Fi access point to hand out a DHCP address and leave the access point disconnected from the Internet. Another simple way of testing is to unplug the cable or DSL line from your cable or DLS modem.

Two low-level networking APIs that used to return a MAC address now return the fixed value 02:00:00:00:00:00. The APIs in question are sysctl (NET_RT_IFLIST) and ioctl (SIOCGIFCONF). Developers using the value of the MAC address should migrate to identifiers such as -[UIDevice identifierForVendor]. This change affects all apps running on iOS 7.

Objective-C Runtime Notes

Due to changes in how the isa field is implemented, *self may change during enumeration (for example, if the container is retained).

Workaround: When implementing countByEnumeratingWithState, do not set state- >mutationsPtr = self.

Passbook

Notes

As of iOS 7 Seed 4, Passbook has added support for the major and minor fields to better match the rest of the iBeacon ecosystem. The new major and minor keys are independently variable optional alongside proximityUUID (required) in each dictionary in the beacons array.

In previous versions of the iOS SDK, Passbook did not validate the back fields on passes completely. The validation rules have not changed, but validation is now including back fields. Please check the console log for additional logs.

As of iOS 7 Seed 3, PKPassLibraryDidCancelAddPasses is a new status code in the PKPassLibraryAddPassesStatus enum. It signifies that the user tapped Cancel in an add-passes alert.

Safari



Fixed in Seed 4

Safari website credentials do not always autofill between mobile and desktop versions. Workaround: Use the desktop version if the site offers it.

Upgrading to iOS may reset Safari’s settings to their default values.

Security Notes

-[UIDevice uniqueIdentifier] is no longer accepted in submissions to the App Store. In iOS 7, apps that are already on the store or on users’ devices that call this removed API will no longer be returned the UDID. Instead, -[UIDevice uniqueIdentifier] will return a 40-character string starting with FFFFFFFF, followed by the hex value of -[UIDevice identifierForVendor]. It is important to consider how this will affect existing apps. Consider submitting updates that no longer access the UDID.

iOS now requests user consent for apps to use audio input on all iOS 7 devices. For devices sold in China, iOS will also request user consent for apps to use the camera hardware. The operating system will present the consent alert when you set the category of the instantiated AVAudioSession. The AVAudioSession categories that will present the alert are AVAudioSessionCategoryRecord and AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayAndRecord.

If the user doesn’t allow access, the audio session data will be all zeros (silence). For devices where camera access is requested and denied by the user, the video capture session is a black screen.

The API gethostuuid() has been removed and will not be accepted for submission to the store, regardless of the targeted OS. For existing apps running on iOS 7, the function will return a uuid_t representation of the vendor identifier (-[UIDevice identifierForVendor]).

Setup

Known Issue

The setup assistant may crash when setting up a new device with an existing email address.

Workaround: Continue through the setup assistant. Then go to Settings > iCloud and manually enable the services that are off.

Siri

Notes

This seed includes development versions of new male and female Siri voices for U.S. English and French, and a male voice for German.

Social Notes



Through iOS 6, when using TWTweetComposeViewController and SLComposeViewController (the latter only for Twitter and Weibo, but not Facebook), if the caller supplies a completionHandler, the supplied completionHandler is responsible for dismissing the view controller. As of iOS 7, if the app links against the iOS 7 SDK, the view controller will dismiss itself even if the caller supplies a completionHandler. To avoid this, the caller’s completionHandler should not dismiss the view controller.

Known Issue

When using the iOS 6.1 SDK on OS X v10.8 Mountain Lion, if you use the iOS 5.0 or iOS 5.1 Legacy SDK in iOS Simulator, you will not be able to use Twitter features: attempting to sign in to Twitter via the Settings pane will fail, and Twitter.framework will not work correctly. If you need to test Twitter features, you will need to choose either an iOS 6.1 or iOS 6.0 Simulator run destination, or you can test with iOS 5.x on a device.

Springboard

Notes

Active touches are no longer canceled when the user takes a screenshot. Dynamic wallpaper is not available on iPhone 4.

Fixed in Seed 4

Springboard crashes when accessing some web clips in the App Switcher.

When restoring from an iCloud backup on a device with hundreds of apps, Springboard may crash repeatedly.

Passwords with diacritical marks are not supported in this seed. If you have diacritical marks in your password, change it before upgrading to Seed 3 as you will be unable to unlock your device.

Sprite Kit Known Issue

+[AVPlayer playerWithPlayerItem:] returns an AVPlayer object, but the current item will return nil if the player was created on another thread.

Stores

Known Issue

Some iPhone 4 devices are unable to download content from the App Store and the iTunes Store.

Sync

Fixed in Seed 4



The Wi-Fi sync option in iTunes is checked, but Wi-Fi devices do not appear in iTunes.

UIKit

Notes

In previous seeds, the snapshot API (snapshotView and resizableSnapshotViewFromRect:withCapInsets:) would defer taking the snapshot if the view had never been committed or had been added to the view hierarchy in the current transaction. This behavior has changed.

Snapshots now always represent the current, committed state of the view. Attempting to snapshot a view that has never been committed logs a message and now returns nil.

Snapshotting methods have been updated and now take an argument: afterUpdates. When set to YES, this instructs the snapshot to wait until all pending changes to the hierarchy have been committed. To maintain the pre-Seed 4 behavior, pass NO and the snapshot will capture what is currently on screen. See UIView.h for more details.

When there isn’t enough room in the navigation bar layout for the full text of the back button title, the navigation bar will substitute a generic short back title (in English, “Back”). If even that string is too long, the bar will show the back indicator chevron with no title.

+[UIPasteboard pasteboardWithName:create:] and +[UIPasteboard pasteboardWithUniqueName] now unique the given name to allow only those apps in the same application group to access the pasteboard. If the developer attempts to create a pasteboard with a name that already exists and they are not part of the same app suite, they will get their own unique and private pasteboard. Note that this does not affect the system provided pasteboards, general, and find.

Starting with Seed 2, apps default to using the new view controller-based status bar management system. To opt out of this, add a value of NO for the UIViewControllerBasedStatusBarAppearance key to your Info.plist.

When using Auto Layout to position a UIButton, if you set the content compression resistance or content hugging priority to minimum, the button will have ambiguous layout.

Workaround: Don’t use a content compression resistance or content hugging priority of less than 2 for UIButton.

UIScreenEdgePanGestureRecognizer allows you to perform actions in response to swipes over the edge of the screen using the same heuristics that the system uses for its own gestures. Use this if you have a navigation semantic of your own that doesn’t use UINavigationController but should include this gesture (e.g., Safari).

This gesture recognizer has a property that describes the edges on which it’s active. UIRectEdge is a new enum type that this property and -[UIViewController edgesForExtendedLayout] can share. UIRectEdge replaces UIExtendedEdge, which will be removed. The members of both have the same values. Use Xcode to replace all instances of “UIExtendedEdge” in your project with “UIRectEdge”.

UIButtonTypeInfoLight, UIButtonTypeInfoDark, and UIButtonTypeDetailDisclosure buttons all look the same.

Blurred layers are not available on iPhone 4. Parallax is not available on iPhone 4. Letterpress text is not available on iPhone 4.



Fixed in Seed 4

The UIImagePickerController does not show a live preview when using custom overlays. UIPickerView with custom views doesn’t show the views in the selection indicator.

UIRefreshControl and the associated table view are hidden under the navigation bar when setTranslucent: is NO.

IB support for -topLayoutGuide and -bottomLayoutGuide is not functional in this seed. The title of the UIRefreshControl appears below the navigation bar.

Known Issue

Your app’s UI may move slightly after using a media player in landscape mode.

Weather

Notes

Weather conditions are not animated on iPhone 4.

WebKit

Notes

Previously, when the viewport parameters were modified, the old parameters were never discarded. This caused the viewport parameters to be additive.

For example, if you started with width=device-width and then changed it to initial-scale=1.0, you ended up with a computed viewport of width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0.

In iOS 7, this has been addressed. Now you end up with with a computed viewport of initial- scale=1.0.

Previously, when using <meta name=”viewport” content=”initial-scale=1.0, user-scalable=1″>, the scale could be incorrect after rotation.

Now, if a user has not scaled the page explicitly, the page is restored to its initial scale. Also, the current scale is now correctly restricted within the min-scale, max-scale bounds.

Some images for Retina display devices appear at twice the size that they should instead of being scaled down 50%. This issue can also occur with any image to be scaled that is larger than its container and that uses either the background-size property or the -webkit-background-size property. This issue affects both native apps that display web content and web pages viewed in Safari for iPhone.

The background CSS shorthand property now resets the value of the background-size property to auto when background size is not specified. This new behavior is per the CSS spec, and the old behavior is available only for apps linked to an SDK prior to iOS 7.0 when running on iOS 7 or later.

Workaround: Specify the background-size property or the -webkit-background-size property after the background shorthand property in the CSS stylesheet for the web content being displayed.



Known Issue

Web apps and web clips created in previous seeds will not stay in folders across reboot.

Workaround: Delete the old web app or web clip and recreate it in this seed by loading the content in Safari, tapping the Action button, and then “Add to Home Screen.”

Wi-Fi

Notes

This seed introduces changes to AWDL so that technologies that use it—such as AirDrop and the MultiPeerConnectivity APIs—will not work properly with older seeds.

Google Celebrates Its One Year Anniversary for Kansas City's Fiber

Happy one year anniversary to Kansas City's fiber! It sure has been a crazy year. There has been an explosion if growth with the Internet, which is fantastic! Again, happy fiberversary to Kansas City, and may more cities have fiber in the future!

Apple Dev Centers Returns

After a week long outage, Apple's developer center is back online. The developer portal was shut down due to a "hack", and the system ended up getting a complete overhaul. The site doesn't look very different on the outside, which leaves me to think that most of the work must have gone into the backend of the site.

New Nexus 7 Hits Google Play

The amazing new Nexus 7 tablet has hit Google Play. The 16GB and 32GB WiFi models are going to be shipping by next Tuesday. If you want the uni-cellular model (works on GSM and CDMA) you will have to wait a few more weeks.

Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt To Retire

Time Warner Cable CEO Glenn Britt will be retiring at the end of the year, to be followed out by current COO Rob Marcus. Marcus will be taking over as Chairman and CEO on January 1, 2014. TWC might also merge with Charter Communications under Marcus.

Google Ends Chromecast Netflix Promotion Due To 'Overwhelming Demand'

Three months of Netflix with purchase of Google's Chromecast sounded way too good to be true. It turns out that the deal was too good to be true. Google is ending the promotion because the Chromecast has had is having such an 'overwhelming demand'. according to The Los Angeles Times.

Largest Hacking Scheme in U.S. History Uncovered

Four Russians and a Ukrainian are being charged with operating an enormous hacking organization that for the past seven years, been breaking into major corporate networks in the United States and around the world.
Indictments were announced today in Newark, New Jersey. The attorney called it the largest hacking and data breach scheme ever prosecuted in the United States.
The hackers acquired more than 160 million credit and debit card numbers, which were then sold on the black market.
Losses are estimated to be in hundreds of millions of dollars.
Corporate victims include the NASDAQ, 7-Eleven, Carrefour, JCP, Hannaford, Heartland, Wet Seal, Commidea, Dexia, JetBlue, Dow Jones, Euronet, Visa Jordan, Global Payment, Diners Singapore and Ingenicard.
The hackers are Vladimir Drinkman, Aleksander Kalinin, Roman Kotov, Dmitriy Smilianets, and Mikhaol Rytikov.

Google Takes on Apple TV with Chromecast

Google is trying to take on Apple TV with ChromeCast, a $35 HDMI dongle that allows customers to stream videos and music to their TV. This device turns every TV into a Smart TV, but there is no walled garden from which to control it from .You can control it from iOS, Android, and the Web.

The Chromecast doesn't mirror your screen, but allows you to send TV shows, movies, and music to your TV via the cloud. You can queue up media to play after the current media is done playing. Also, you can have the Chromecast mirror your Chrome tabs and windows as well as using apps. Netflix is the only current player, but Google has released the Google Cast SDK, to allow more apps in. iOS, Android, and Chrome developers are allowed in on this, there is no walled garden to limit Chromecast development to just one platform.

With the purchase of Chromecast, you will also get three months free of Netflix.

Chromecast is available on Google Play, Amazon, and Best Buy today, but more retailers and international expansion will be coming son.

Android 4.3 Jelly Bean Rolls Out Today OTA

Shipping with the brand new Nexus 7, Android 4.3 Jelly Bean hit the market today.

There are multi-user settings, with restricted profiles for children. You can restrict app content for specific users. This is apparently the same thing as Microsoft's Kid's Corner on Windows Phone.

Bluetooth Smart, aka Bluetooth Low Energy and OpenGL ES 3.0 support was added.


Android 4.3 Jelly Bean will be rolled out to the Nexus family of devices today, with the HTC One and Galaxy S4 coming online soon.

New Nexus 7 Tablet Released

The new Nexus 7 was released today at Google's breakfast press event. It is a gerat new tablet. While it looks similar, there are many improvements. There is a high-res 1920 by 1200 screen, which is much better than the previous 1920 by 800. The device also ships with a new inside, a 1.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro 8064, Adreno 320 graphics, and 2GB of RAM. It also packs with dual stereo speakers, and a rear-facing 5-megapixel camera and the same front-facing camera as on the last device.

The new tablet is running on Android 4.3 Jelly Bean. There are a few new features, but not a ton. There are restricted profiles for children, which allows you to restrict apps from users. Bluetooth Smart, a.k.a. Bluetooth Low Energy, OpenGL ES3.0 and NFC.

There are Wi-Fi and LTE models available — the first unlocked LTE tablet created by Google.The LTE model is compatible with GSM (AT&T/T-Mobile) as well as CDMA (Verizon). With the battery, you can watch 9 hours of HD video and browse the web for 10 hours. This tablet has received a major facelift from last year's. The 16GB model will cost $229, the 32GB WiFi model be at $269, and the 32GB LTE model will cost $349. Retailers include RadioShack, Walmart, Amazon, and Best Buy. The UK, Germany, Japan, Canada, Spain, France, Australia, and South Korea will be getting the tablet soon. The LTE model will be available in the coming weeks, but the WiFi Nexus 7 will be available starting on Tuesday. Nice job Google!

Google's Mysterious Android Breakfast at Noon

Today at noon, Sundar Pichai will be holding a Google Breakfast press event. Honestly, I really don't know what they are going to do, because the Moto X is on tap for next Thursday. For a liveblog, join Engadget here. Enjoy!

Cisco Acquires SourceFire For $2.7 Billion

Cisco Systems announced today that it will be purchasing Sourcefire, a Columbia, Maryland security equipment company. The deal was announced in Cisco's corporate blog.

Sourcefire is a leader in intrusion-detection devices. Its products are laid on a foundation made up of Snort, an open-source intrusion-detection software, which it developed. Sourcefire was founded in 2001 by Martin Roesch. It was started in 2001, has about 650 employees and reported sales of about $220 million in 2012.

This is Cisco's seventh deal for 2013, with hopefully more to come.

Aereo to Launch in Utah and Chicago

Aereo's mission to deliver low-cost remote antenna HD television is really taking off. After launching in New York, Boston, and Atlanta, Chicago and Utah are next up on tap. Chicago will go live on September 13, covering 19 counties in the Indiana and Illinois area. The state of Utah will go live on August 13. There will be no specialized pricing for Chicago, the normal prices will continue. Look below to see if your county is lucky enough to get Aereo.

INDIANA

• Jasper


• La Porte


• Lake


• Newton


• Porter

Illinois

• Cook


• DeKalb


• DuPage


• Grundy


• Kane


• Kankakee


• Kendall


• La Salle


• Lake


• McHenry


• Will

 

Verizon Releases Three New Motorola DROID Phones

At a press event today, Verizon Wireless announced it will be updating its DROID line with three new phones, DROID Maxx, DROID Ultra, and DROID Mini. All of these phones are brought to you by Motorola (a unit at Google).

The Ultra sports a five inch screen and is only 7.18mm thick.

[caption id="attachment_757" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The DROID Ultra[/caption]

The Maxx has an enormous 3,500mAH battery which Verizon brags will be able to run for two days solid with only one charge.

[caption id="attachment_759" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The DROID Maxx[/caption]

The Mini has a 4.3 inch display and offers wireless charging. All of the phones are wrapped with Kevlar and will be hitting the market next month.

[caption id="attachment_756" align="aligncenter" width="300"] The DROID Mini[/caption]

The Maxx and Ultra will be available for purchase on August 20, with the Maxx going for $299.99 and the Ultra at $199.99, both on a two-year contract. The Mini will cost $99.99 on a two-year contract, and will be available starting August 29.

 

Syrian Electronic Army Strikes Tango

After hacking several Twitter accounts, the Syrian Electronic Army is back to claim stealing millions of email addresses and phone numbers from the millions of users of the popular messaging service Tango. The SEA says it will give the data to the Syrian government soon. The hack was publicly announced by Tango on Saturday, but only said that "some data" has been accessed.

Tango experienced a cyber intrusion that resulted in unauthorized access to some data. We are working on increasing our security systems.

— Tango (@TangoMe) July 20, 2013

 

Hole is Found in Apple Developer Center, Causes Shutdown

Security researcher Ibrahim Balic said he didn't want to steal personal data from Apple's Dev Center. Balic researches company petals and then sends those companies bugs with personal data pool encryption. He found 13 bugs which he then reported to Apple, via Bug Center. Apple then shut down the site because the bugs allowed personal details and other information to be taken from the site. The company first claimed it was "down for maintenance", but later sent an email to developers explaining what happened. I am unsure when the Dev Center will be back online.

Google Q4: Only Getting More Awesome

Google CEO Larry Page revealed that mobile ads may not be working out very well, but that Google's overall state isn't horrible. There are more than 900 million activated Android devices globally, and 1.5 million more are coming online every day. It's pretty crazy to see this kind of adoption rate, given that Android was launched under five years ago. Over 50 billion apps have been downloaded from Google Play. They have paid more money to developers this year than in all of 2012. Updates were included for Google+ and Google Maps. Best of all, Project Loon was made public, and will be making history soon enough. Overall, not a bad quarter for Google.

See below for the full Google+ post from Larry with the full summary from the earnings call:

Google had a great quarter with over $14BN in revenue -- up 19% year-on-year.  Amazing performance for a company that has yet to celebrate its fifteenth birthday!

We live in a world of abundant computing, with multiple operating systems and increasing numbers of devices.  It is a very different environment from when Google started.  There was essentially one OS and one device category:  the PC.

These kinds of changes don’t happen that often, once a decade, maybe even less frequently.  But the shift from laptop to mobiles, from one screen to multiple screens creates tremendous opportunity for Google.

With more devices, more information and more activity online than ever, the potential to improve people’s lives is immense: Getting you the right information just when you need it; Creating the tools to make everyone more effective at home and at work; and helping you share and remember the moments that matter in life.

It’s why I am so excited about the velocity and execution on our platforms, apps and devices.

First, platforms.  With hindsight, Android and Chrome were no brainers.  At the time they were big bets.

The momentum across these platforms is tremendous, as you saw at our annual I/O developer conference in May.  I was astounded we had over 1M people tuning in live just to watch our developer keynote!

We’ve now activated more than 900M Android devices worldwide--and we’re lighting up over 1.5M devices every day.  That’s pretty amazing given the first Android phone launched less than five years ago.

And apps usage is increasing fast.  Over 50BN apps have now been downloaded from the Google Play store.  In fact, we’ve already paid out more money to Android developers this year than in the whole of 2012.

I love the ability to access your “stuff” on Play anywhere.  Take our new music subscription service.  Launched in May, it is an easy, fun way to discover new music with all the songs there, ready to go.  You never have to think about the device you are using.

Chrome—even though only four years old—has over 750M users worldwide and growing!

Then next, apps.  Our goal is to design everything so it’s beautifully simple and hassle free.  Users shouldn’t need to think about our technology.  It should just work.

This quarter we completely revamped our maps UI.  The map is the screen, with no clutter around the edges.  There’s more information about your surroundings, so it’s easier to explore.  And we’ve launched a new, improved navigation feature—with notifications about incidents before you leave, and updates to save time if traffic conditions change.  Best of all, this new maps experience is now available on almost  all devices you’d be likely to use.

It’s the same with Google+. We’ve done a complete redesign to make use of the entire screen, and everything looks consistent whatever the device or the platform.

In addition, the team massively upgraded the photos experience, making software designed for professionals automatically available to everyone … for free!  There’s no need for wrinkles anymore!  Take a look on plus, many of your photos will now be marked “enhanced” and improved automatically.

Finally we launched a new communication app called Hangouts—you can talk to the people you care about across all the major platforms.  Video calls from your phone are very cool, give them a try.

And I’m excited about the progress we continue to make with search.  Our Knowledge Graph is now available in 29 languages—and we’ve expanded the range of information available.  For example, we just added nutrition data.  Ask Google how many calories there are in a glass of white wine and you’ll find out it’s 123.  Or an avocado … 234 calories.  It’s good to have the facts if you want to keep healthy.  And we launched Google Now on iOS in April.

In the same way, we want to make advertising super simple for customers.  Online advertising had developed in very device specific ways with separate campaigns for desktop and mobile. This made arduous work for advertisers and agencies, and meant mobile opportunities often got missed.

It’s why we launched Enhanced Campaigns.  Advertisers have upgraded 6M campaigns, that’s almost 75 percent of all their active campaigns.   And Nikesh will talk in a little more detail about the positive reaction from clients.  This is the biggest-ever change to AdWords and the velocity and execution has been great thanks to the hard work of all the teams.

Finally, devices.  There is so much excitement around new devices today, and the potential for innovation is tremendous.

You can now buy the HTC One and the Samsung Galaxy S4 Google Play editions, and enjoy the best of Google.  And there’s a ton of momentum around Chromebooks, which are growing fast and defying the more general decline in PC sales.

Finally I know you’re all eagerly anticipating what Motorola is launching soon.  Having been a tester for a while, I’m really excited.

We’re very optimistic about the opportunities in front of Google today.  The potential for technology to make people’s lives better is tremendous.  But to achieve that potential we need to stay focused.  It’s why we continue to invest the vast majority of our resources and time in our core products.  But my job as CEO is also to think about the future, and ensure we continue to bet on new technology that can solve big problems in the world.

Project Loon, which we launched in June, is a great example. Bringing affordable, balloon-powered Internet access to remote areas is an idea that Sergey and I had been thinking about for over a decade.  It was great to see that project literally get off the ground, and give people a bit more hope for an improving world.

None of this would happen without great people and we are so lucky that we have them.  I'd like to thank all the Googlers and Motorolans who make everything possible.  Keep up that velocity and execution.

What A Wild Day For Microsoft: Recap of Recent News

SURFACE RT FIASCO

Everyone was thinking that the Surface line of tablets was going to pull Microsoft out of its slum. Unfortunately, consumers weren't worrying about the corporation as they were browsing on their iPads or checking email on their Galaxy Note. Sales were so low Microsoft was forced to cut the price of the Surface RT by $150, down to $349. But, the company still wasn't done screwing up. Yesterday, Microsoft wrote off $900 million onto its unsold inventory. This almost billion dollar payment just puts another nail in Microsoft's coffin. Still, the company has the nerve to continually post ads on its social channels to try and make the Surface more attractive. But, it's just too late; customers are too attached to their walled gardens, be it Android or iOS. The Windows 8 operating system and tablets arrived too late in the game. Apple's iPad was out for a full 20 months prior to Microsoft releasing its own line of tablets. That allowed consumers to get nice and cozy in the Apple walled garden as Microsoft sat on its deteriorating market share worrying about its enterprise technology.

STOCK CRISIS

Today, investors ransacked Microsoft's stock price. After starting off generally well, starting at 10:20am, investors began hitting  the kill button. The stock fell by $4.04, the equivalent of 11.40%. Today's plummet is the worst for the company since 2000. Microsoft is worth $32 billion less since the Surface RT announcement. “We know we have to do better and this is one reason we made the strategic and organizational changes last week,” Microsoft chief financial officer Amy Hood said today during its Q4 earnings conference call. “We are confident we are moving in the right direction.”

Apple To Acquire HopStop, Popular Transit App

As first reported earlier by Bloomberg, Apple is acquiring popular navigation app HopStop to help improve its sucky Maps app. This purchase has been confirmed by AllThingsD. This new buy comes just hours after notice of Apple acquiring Locationary. I wouldn't go as far as to say Apple is going on a shopping spree today, but it's becoming close to that.

VLC Returns to the App Store

Two years is a very long time. Back in 2001, Apple pulled the popular VLC Media Player off of iTunes because of licensing fights. This was a major let down for Apple fans who watch content in non-friendly Apple file types.
The media player has since returned to iTunes. Some popular features of the app are that it syncs with iTunes, supports downloads from URLs, WiFi syncing, and the ability to pull media from Dropbox. VLC has the ability to read any video codec. The app supports multi-track audio (including 5.1) and subtitles, so the movies look and sound amazing. One of the best features is that it also comes with AirPlay integration.
The final icing on the cake is that there are no more licensing disputes. VideoLAN, the non-profit behind the app, said it has a Mozilla Public License v2 that allows for sale in the App Store.

 

VLC is available for free on the App Store.

Rovio Fans Can Now Sync Progress Across Devices

Get ready to sync your Angry Birds and Croods game progress across all of tour devices. After a small trial in May, Rovio has said its account-synchronization system is being rolled out globally on iOS and Android. When you download a game, login with your Rovio account to continue playing. Right now, the syncing only works with Angry Birds and Croods.