NFT: August 21,2013

Enjoy the top tech news from today below:

Image:	Title:	Author:
	Microsoft offers classrooms free Surface RT tablets with ad-free Bing for Schools	Tom Warren from The Verge
	Netflix Introduces ‘My List,’ A Personalized Instant Queue For Users All Over The World	Ryan Lawler from TechCrunch
	What You Need to Know on New Details of NSA Spying	Jennifer Valentino-Devries and Sibohan Gorman from WSJ
	Disney’s ESPN Holds Preliminary Talks for Web-Based TV	Christopher Palmeri and Andy Fixmer from Bloomberg
	Embedded Posts Now Available to Everyone	Dave Capra from Facebook
	Motorola settles trademark dispute with Xoom Corp, will phase out tablet's name	Zachary Lutz from Engadget

New HTC Handset "Zara" images and specs leaked before Q4 release

It looks like another phone will be joining the possible HTC One Max for launch this year, the HTC Zara. According to a leaked photo and device specs from @evleaks that were sent out on Monday night, the phone will be launching soon. The handset comes with a plastic case, HTC BoomSound, a 1.2GHz Snapdragon processor, a 4.5-inch qHD display, an 8-megapixel camera, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage, a microSD slot, a 2,200 mAh battery and Android 4.3 Jelly Bean paired with HTC’s Sense 5.5 software. The Zara will possibly be coming out in the fourth quarter of this year.

 

NFT: August 20, 2013

Enjoy the top tech news from today below:

Image:	Title:	Author:
	TiVo announces Roamio DVR line: a four-tuner cord-cutting dream for $199	Nilay Patel from The Verge
	Vine — Twitter’s “Little Video App That Could” — Continues to Grow	Mike Isaac from AllThingsD
	Instagram to App Developers: Hands Off Our Brand, Y’All	Mike Isaac from AllThingsD
	Google’s Updated YouTube App With In-App Multitasking Launches On iOS	Federic Lardinois from TechCrunch
	Email insecurity fears take out legal discussion site Groklaw	David Meyer from GigaOm
	iTunes Radio to Debut in September With McDonald's, Nissan, P&G, Pepsi	John McDermott from AdAge

Verizon Bringing Service to 36 NYC subway Stations

It doesn't matter that Verizon has the best 4G network when you are in the subway and have no service. Verizon is joining rival cell carriers AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile by inking a deal with Transit Wireless to bring 3G and LTE voice and data to 36 subway stations later in the year. These stations already have wireless service, it's just a matter of Verizon adding its own hardware. The network will begin to rollout service in the next few weeks in Chelsea and midtown in Manhattan.

Big Red is also participating in phase two of Transit's coverage project. This phase brings coverage to 40 new stations, including Grand Central, Herald Square, and Bryant Park, in early 2014.

Google Maps for iOS gets real-time incident reporting from Waze

Google has announced today on the Google Maps blog that it will be integrating real-time accident data from Waze into Google Maps for iOS. The new feature means that when Wazers report incidents, the information will get passed along to Google Maps users.

The features will ivelimited to users in certain locations, including: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Switzerland, UK and the US. Google is also integrating Google search into Waze's iOS and Android apps. As well, the Waze Map Editor now has access to Google Street View and satellite imagery.

NFT: August 19, 2013

Enjoy the top tech news from today below:

Image:	Title:	Author:
	Microsoft launches Skype for Outlook.com in the US, the UK, Germany, France, Canada, and Brazil	Emil Protalinski from The Next Web
	White House Taps McAfee CTO for Cybersecurity Post	Danny Yadron from WSJ Digits
	GoDaddy Acquires Merchant “Finder” Startup Locu for $70 Million	Kara Swisher from AllThingsD
	Samsung Galaxy Mega hitting AT&T, Sprint and US Cellular this month	Brian Heater from Engadget
	Zillow Fills Out NYC Listings With $50M StreetEasy Acquisition, Plans Follow-On Offering Of 2.5M Shares For $228M	Ingrid Lunden from TechCrunch
	Key Nike FuelBand developer and fitness expert Jay Blahnik confirmed to join Apple, likely working on iWatch	Mark Gurman from 9to5Mac

Germany adds some rules for German Bitcoin usage

At this point, governments have been pretty clear about their opinion of Bitcoin; saying either "That's cool," or "Get it away from me." Germany has just updated its policy on Bitcoin. The country will recognize Bitcoin as private money that will remain tax-free for personal uses. You only have to pay taxes for business transactions.

HTC One Mini coming to AT&T for $100 with contract

The 4.3 inch HTC One Mini is finally becoming available to AT&T customers. The phone will be available next week, for $100 on a contract. The device has a 720p display, 4MP UltraPixel camera, runs on Android 4.2, 1,800mAh battery and 1.4GHz dual-core Snapdragon 400 SoC with a gigabyte RAM.

Beats looking to drop HTC

Beats Electronics, the creator of the popular Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, is apparently looking to end its partnership with Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC, The Wall Street Journal is reporting.


HTC bought a 51% stake in Beats for about $309 million in 2011, but it sold back half of it in 2012. Beats wants to get HTC's share of the company back, and get a new investor.

This Samsung Galaxy Gear Concept Video is Awesome

There has been a lot of hype in the past few days about Samsung's possible upcoming smartwatch, the Galaxy Gear. Digital firm T3 has created a really cool concept video of the device. Check it out below.

GOOGLE IS DOWN

All of Google' services are currently down.

Update 1 (August 16 6:57pm): Google is currently up from the East Coast, as far as I can tell.

Update 2 (August 16 7:01pm): Google appears to be back up for most people. Check out below for some funny tweets about the outage.

Remember that two minutes when Google was down?

— Ed Bott (@edbott) August 16, 2013

 

We’re canceling the apocalypse. As soon as http://t.co/ct7qzncVWU comes back.

— Dan Benjamin (@danbenjamin) August 16, 2013

Google went down because it was told it could no longer have 20% time and didn't like it

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) August 16, 2013

Update 3 (August 16 7:19pm): Google appears to be up in the NYC area

Update 4 (August 16 7:56pm): YouTube is online

Update 5 (August 16 8:09pm): Google has updated its App Status page with virtually the same report for each of its products. See below for a screenshot.

NFT: August 16, 2013

Enjoy the top tech news from today below:

Image:	Title:	Author:
	NSA broke privacy rules thousands of times per year, audit finds	Barton Gellman from The Washington Post
	Canonical beats Pebble as the biggest crowdfunding campaign ever, hitting $10.3m for the Ubuntu Edge	Nick Summers from The Next Web
	HTC One finally coming to Verizon on August 22nd	Nathan Ingraham from The Verge
	Samsung Said to Unveil Wristwatch-Like Smartphone Next Month	Jungah Lee from Bloomberg
	AT&T to stock Moto X on August 23rd, offer in-store look at Moto Maker possibilities	Darren Murph from Engadget
	Moto X available from AT&T starting August 23rd	Chris Welch from The Verge

Path is now being opened over 1 billion views per month

In a tweet, Path CEO Dave Morin has announced that Path is being opened over one billion times each month.

 

Path is now opened over 1 billion times per month.

— Dave Morin (@davemorin) August 16, 2013

 

HTC One to launch on Verizon on August 22nd

 

The HTC One finally has a launch date on Verizon Wireless, August 22nd. The phone will come on a contract for $199.99. The phone is HTC's flagship, and is a really nice phone in general.

Verizon #4G LTE + HTC One = Aug. 22 online and in stores for $199.99 on contract http://t.co/YQCEbjJMRH @HTCUSA pic.twitter.com/1w1MRO4uJ5

— Verizon Wireless (@VZWnews) August 16, 2013

Samsung Galaxy Gear to possibly be launched on September 4th

Bloomberg is reporting that Samsung's smartwatch is a "wristwatch-like smartphone" that will be launching on September 4th. The news source points to the Android-powered device being able to "make phone calls, surf the web, and handle emails." As indicated by a trademark filing, Bloomberg is expecting the device to be called the Samsung Galaxy Gear.

The report alludes to that the device will operate independently from your smartphone, but it's possible that Bloomberg's sources are saying that the watch will be a companion device to the smartphone, using its cell service. The Galaxy Gear is expected to launch on September 4th at the company's press event in Berlin.

LG G2 coming to 6 Canadian carriers this fall

LG was pretty much silent about the Canadian launch for the G2 at its New York City event. But, today it is making the release announcement for Canada. The 5.2-inch phone will be available on Bell, Rogers, SaskTel, Telus, Videotron and Wind Mobile in the fall.  There is ni mention of price, but the Canadian G2 will have 3,000mAh battery and 32Gb of storage that the American G2 has.

Microsoft is closing Games for Windows Live on August 22nd

Microsoft is closing its Games for Windows Live marketplace on August 22nd. In a note on the Xbox support site, Microsoft says that the Points system and PC Marketplace will be closed, meaning that Games for Windows Live users can no longer be able to buy games. The PC client will not be affected immediately, so previously purchased games and content will still be available for consumers.

iOS 7 Beta 6 Now Available OTA

iOS 7 Beta 5 has been out for barely a week, but Apple is apparently ready to send out a new developer beta to the newest version of iOS. Today, Apple has released iOS 7 Beta 6 to developers, which is currently available as an OTA download. The update looks to just have bug fixes, but minimal new features. Check below for the full change-log.

Address Book

Notes

• The classes in the AddressBookUI framework now explicitly disallow subclassing. For apps linked against the iOS 7 SDK, attempting to initialize a subclass of one of these classes returns nil. For apps linked against older SDKs, the only behavior change is a warning logged to the console.


• As of Seed 4, 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.
  
  
  
  

AV Foundation

Notes

AVCaptureSession now uses your app’s AVAudioSession by default.

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

In Seed 4 and later, the Exchange DeviceIdentifier has been changed back to the behavior of iOS 6 where it uses the serial number.

Fonts

Notes

New font line heights were introduced in Seed 4. If you had manually aligned your font in earlier seeds, it may move slightly up vertically in later seeds.

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.
  
  
  
  

Known Issues

Password fields are not displayed in alert views for apps in landscape (for example, Game Center authentication or In-App Purchase). Text entry still works, though you can’t see what you are typing.

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

The MCSession APIs function as they were presented at WWDC. Major changes and enhancements include:

• The following new method on MCSession has been implemented:
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  • 
    

    - (NSOutputStream *)startStreamWithName:(NSString *)streamName toPeer:(MCPeerID *)peerID error:(NSError **)error

    
    
  
  

  
  

  
  
  This delegate method has been implemented:
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  • 
    

    - (void)session:(MCSession *)session didReceiveStream:(NSInputStream *)stream withName:(NSString *)streamName fromPeer:(MCPeerID *)peerID

    
    
  
  

  
  

  
  


• The following new method on MCSession has been implemented:
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  • 
    

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

    
    
  
  

  
  

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

  
  

  
  
  • 
    

    - (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.
  
  


• 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

• AVAudioSession can no longer become active by apps in the background that wake due to Background Fetch, Background Transfers, and Remote Notification events.


• 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

Notes

• The cellular fallback technology present in previous seeds has been removed as of Seed 5.


• 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.

Photos

Notes

Upon upgrading from an earlier seed, photo thumbnails in the Photos app will not appear for a short while.

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 areAVAudioSessionCategoryRecord 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 auuid_t representation of the vendor identifier (-[UIDevice identifierForVendor]).

Siri

Notes

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


• 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.

Sprite Kit

Notes

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

Stores

Known Issues

App downloads can get stuck in the “Waiting” state.

Workaround: Reboot your device once or twice to resolve the issue and allow subsequent downloads to continue.

UIKit

Notes

• Before Seed 4, 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 theUIViewControllerBasedStatusBarAppearance 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.

Known Issues

Password fields are not displayed in alert views for apps in landscape (for example, Game Center authentication or In-App Purchase). Text entry still works, though you can’t see what you are typing.

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.


• Web apps and web clips created prior to Seed 4 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

Seed 4 and later include changes to AWDL such that technologies that use it—such as AirDrop and the MultiPeerConnectivity APIs—will not work properly with older seeds.

NFT: August 15, 2013

Enjoy the top tech news from today below:

Image:	Title:	Author:
	Facebook to Test Its Own PayPal Competitor in Bid to Simplify Mobile Purchases	Jason Del Ray + Mike Isaac from AllThingsD
	'Dots' launches on Android, adds new game mode	Jacob Kastrenakes  from The Verge
	Ink’s New Mobile Framework Lets iOS Apps Talk To Each Other, Share Data (You Know, Like On Android)	Sarah Perez from TechCrunch
	Verifone's Way2Ride app lets riders NYers pay for their cab via Ultrasound	Jon from Good Night Nerd
	They’re back: Syrian Electronic Army Hacks WaPo Article Recommendations	Jon from Good Night Nerd
	Aereo CEO: Service will turn a profit before turning in 1M subscribers	Joan E. Solsman from CNET

Verifone's Way2Ride app lets riders NYers pay for their cab via Ultrasound

VeriFone has launched a new amenity for NYC taxi riders this week, letting customers pay for a cab by tapping their smartphone. Way2Ride uses Zoosh ultrasound technology, allowing secure transactions via the mic and speaker in your smartphone and the terminal on the other end. The app for iOS and Android let's you pre-select payment information and even include a tip. To start a transaction, just tap your phone at anytime during the ride and then just hop out of your cab when you reach your destination. You will get a receipt in the app once your transaction is complete. You can also use the app to hail a cab, estimate your fare, and report a lost item.

They're back: Syrian Electronic Army Hacks WaPo Article Recommendations

The Syrian Electronic Army is back. This time, they hacked an article recommendation service used by many large news organizations: Outbrain.Online The Washington Post has a small box underneath all of its articles that display recommendations. Instead, the box said "Hacked by SEA." The Post confirmed that the site was hijacked. In a later article, WaPo linked the attack to Outbrain, a service that is responsible for the site's article recommendations.
Outbrain soon posted on Twitter that it was hacked, but didn't blame anyone. Outbrain also notes that "the breach now seems to be secured."

Due to an attack, our recommendations are down. Our team is working to get our system secure & up shortly. Apologize for any inconvenience.

— Outbrain (@Outbrain) August 15, 2013

The Army's new Twitter account, @Official_SEA16, tweeted about the hack today.

@TIME, @CNN, @Washingtonpost websites hacked in one strike by hacking @outbrain #SEA #SyrianElectronicArmy #Syria pic.twitter.com/5OI1BE2oCM

— SyrianElectronicArmy (@Official_SEA16) August 15, 2013

The Army also posted a photo of the compromised Outbrain console.

Windows 8.1 will be shipping with Skype pre-installed

Windows 8.1 will be shipping with Sky pre-installed. Anyone who doesn't have it already installed will get the instant messenger with their upgrade to 8.1. The move could lead to higher Skype usage on Windows 8 due to that the program comes with the operating system.

Yahoo's new weather app hits Android

Yahoo's iOS weather app is gorgeous, and the company is bringing that sake design to Android today. The new weather app has the same interface and location-based Flickr background. Some other features include longer long-term forecasts, more detailed condition reporting. Android users also get a new lock screen widget. Click here to go Google Play to download the new app.

Stripe Comes to the UK

Payment company Stripe is expanding across the pond into the United Kingdom today. Stripe now supports two new currencies, the British pound, and the euro. Stripe is a direct competitor to PayPal, Braintree, and others. Stripe has won over a lot of developers due to that all you need to do to implement Stripe is insert a couple lines of code.

The service has been in beta in the UK since March, and it is still in beta for Ireland, France, and the Netherlands. Virgin Pure and Thread.com have been using the beta.

Stripe is definitely looking out on the rest of Europe and Australia to expand in the future.

LG's G2 may come with wireless charging

LG has launched the G2 with no mention of wireless charging, but Verizon seems to be adding that feature to its version of the phone. On its G2 newsletter page, the company mentions that the CDMA version will come with "exclusive wireless charging," and the picture of the rear of the G2 looks slightly different than all of the other models.and the accompanying image also shows a slightly different design to the rear buttons. I'm sure AT&T, T-Mobile, and others have already begun banging down LG's doors over this.

Facebook reportedly testing its own mobile purchasing program

Purchasing stuff on mobile devices is very easy, between Amazon, PayPal, and Google. According to a report from All Things D, Facebook is trying to break into the market too.

Facebook's mobile payment system which is in a limited test right now, allows shoppers to make purchases with credit cards stored in their Facebook account. Some users already have this information in the system from buying Gifts and in-game purchases. The system uses one-click mobile paying, allowing users to pay without having to type in their info.purchases on its main desktop site, which require customers to have credit card information on file. A retail company called JackThreads is currently the only company to have its hands on the platform.

It's honestly not clear what Facebook will use this new payments platform for. Maybe they will incorporate mini-stores into retail Facebook pages, like American Eagle, and others. It will be very tough for Facebook to get users to hop onto the service, because everyone is already cozy with their favorite mobile payments solution.

NFT: August 14, 2013

Enjoy the top tech news from today below:

Image:	Title:	Author:
	Google is killing Google+ Messenger on iOS and Android in favor of Hangouts	Nick Summers from The Next Web
	Brazil sues Samsung for $108 million over working conditions	Tom Warren from The Verge
	Apple Shares Reclaim $500	John Paczkowski from AllThingsD
	Cisco Said It Will Fire 4,000 People Next Year And The Stock Is Tanking After Hours	Steve Kovach from Business Insider
	Yes, Gmail users have an expectation of privacy	Nilay Patel from The Verge
	iCloud.com beta updated with iOS 7 design	Scott Buscemi from 9to5Mac

Introducing Square Market

Square is an awesome payments system for on-the-go merchants to sell their goods. The Square Reader, a small headphone jack credit card swiper makes it super easy for merchants to accept credit card payments with only a 2.75% processing fee per swipe. Today, Square is bringing its payments platform to the web with Square Market. Square Market is very similar in purpose to that of Etsy. The Market lets you sell whatever you want, at your own price. Square Market's site design is amazing, and definitely deserves some credit in that light. Merchant pages are gorgeous, and so are the other various windows that pop up while purchasing something.

Square Market lets small businesses or even an individual sell products on the Internet. As well, Square Market connects with Square's other mobile apps. Let's say Joe owns a coffee shop, CoffeeRules. Joe can sell his coffee in store, and online at Square Market. Additional features include that of adding store hours to shop description page, customer rewards, contact info, social media accounts, and past tweets of the business's account.

Square is still holding true on its vision of having extremely low fees for its merchants. Square Market charges a 2.75% processing fee per sale. There is no monthly charge, setup fee, or anything else to pay. You only tack on the processing fee after every order. This means that if you don't sell anything for let's say a month, you don't pay a nickel. This way of charging merchants is definitely a good one.

Some screenshots of Square Market

[gallery columns="4" ids="1220,1221,1222,1223,1224,1225,1226,1227,1228,1229"]

 

HTC Releases Full 2 Minute Ad with Robert Downey Jr.

HTC sent out a trailer for this ad on Monday, but HTC may need a new marketing department. The full two minute ad is full of awkward stunts filled with different variation of what HTC stands for. At the end, the video suggests that it stands for "Happy Telephone Company." Check the new ad out below.

Google Dropping Messenger for Hangouts

Google's Hangouts chat service was meant to unify messaging experiences across all of the company's services. Hangouts is getting one step closer to that, as Google shuts down Google+ Messenger. Messenger will leave the Android Google+ app in an update today, and the chat service will be leaving iOS at a later date. Users can remove their old conversations via Google Takeout.

Today's Google+ app update is bringing some other features on Android. Users can grab photos and videos from their Google Drive and share them on Google+. The update also allows users to switch between multiple accounts without having to sign in and out. Pull-down-to-refresh is also coming soon to Google+.

Windows 8.1 to launch on October 18, Day earlier on Windows Store

Microsoft continues to work on Windows 8.1, and the company has announced that the update will be available on October 18th. The free update will be listed in the Windows Store for existing Windows 8 users at 8AM ET on October 17, with boxed copies, new hardware, and a full retail release on October 18th. The final copy of Windows 8.1, the Release to Manufacturing (RTM) in the coming weeks.

 

Want a peek into Android 4.3? CyanogenMod 10.2 is your ticket

Android 4.3 releases are sure to take a while, so the first nightly builds of CyanogenMod are your ticket. Anyone who has the Samsung Captivate, Galaxy S Relay 4G or AT&T's Galaxy S III can install the firmware and get the features of Android 4.3. Just so you know, this is not a stable release of CyanogenMod, so take caution when installing. Click here to go to go to the CyanogenMod downloads page.

Vevo Gains AirPlay video support on iOS

Vevo has just pushed an update to its iOS app, and it should definitely excite Apple TV owners who like watching music videos on the big screen. The new version of the app adds full AirPlay support, which means that video and audio can be streamed to your Apple TV. Other than the AirPlay support, there isn't much else that's new with the app. Click here to go to the iTunes Store and get the new app.

NFT: August 13, 2013

Enjoy the top tech news from today below:

Image:	Title:	Author:
	Recap of Samsung TV Event: UHD TV = 4x res of full HD, OLED TV at $9,000, Evolution Kit upgrades TV brain	Jon from Good Night Nerd
	Some 2013 Nexus 7 users report buggy multitouch, Google is investigating	Jamie Rigg from Engadget
	BlackBerry Not Done With Its Older OS Yet, Intros New BB7 Phone	Ina Fried from AllThingsD
	Fitbit Raises $43M for Health Tracking	Liz Gannes from AllThingsD
	To Square Up To Foursquare, Yelp Now Lets Users Post Reviews Directly From Its Mobile App	Ingrid Lunden from TechCrunch
	Celebrity-only Facebook app will tell the rich and famous who's talking about them	Adi Robertson from The Verge