Source: http://gizmodo.com/even-the-u-n-is-using-drones-to-spy-on-people-now-1477098024
The United Nations now has its own drone program. Its first unmanned aircraft took off earlier this week in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Joining some 87 countries with the capability, the organization says it's just keeping up with the world's technological advances.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/avoid-injuries-with-smart-sneakers-that-tell-you-how-to-1477096679
A daily run can be great for your health and fitness, but it can actually be harmful too if not done properly. Of course the right shoes are an important part of the formula, especially this sensor-laden pair developed by the Fraunhofer Institute which provide real-time feedback on your running style, and how to improve it.
Source: http://gizmodo.com/googles-auto-awesome-will-make-your-photos-snow-or-twi-1477153557
Google's Auto-Awesome feature
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/04/nsa-collecting-location-data-from-cellphones-worldwide/
Hey everyone, the government's tracking you. Quelle surprise. In what has to be one of the least shocking pieces of news to come from the Edward Snowden leaks, The Washington Post is reporting that the National Security Agency has been gathering surveillance data on foreign cellphone users' whereabouts globally, with some Americans potentially caught in the net. The database, which collects about 5 billion records per day, is so vast that not even the NSA has the proper tools to sift through it all. That's not to say the agency hasn't been able to make "good" use of it with analytics programs, though.
One such program, ominously labeled Co-Traveler, allows the NSA to determine "behaviorally relevant relationships" based on data from signals intelligence activity designators (or sigads for short) located around the world, including one codenamed "Stormbrew." That's a lot of jargon for what are essentially data hubs that collect geolocation information down to the cell tower level. Co-Traveler can locate targets of interest based on cellphone users moving in tandem, even if they're unknown threats -- frequent meetups with an existing suspect could reveal a close associate, for instance.
As we've come to expect by now, both the NSA and the Office of the Director for National Intelligence argue that this location-based surveillance is legal. Agency representatives tell the Post that the collection system doesn't purposefully track Americans. However, the NSA also says it can't determine how many US residents get swept up in these location scans; there are concerns that it's following targets protected by Fourth Amendment search rights.
Joseph Volpe contributed to this report.
Filed under: Cellphones, Internet, Mobile
Source: Washington Post
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/05/microsoft-government-snooping-protections/
The NSA / PRISM / MUSCULAR scandal sparked by Edward Snowden's leaks stained many tech companies, and tonight Microsoft has laid out several plans it hopes will convince customers (particularly non-US businesses and foreign governments) they're safe using its products and services. In a blog post, general counsel and executive VP Brad Smith lays out a three pronged approach of "immediate and coordinated action" against the threat of government snooping. It's expanding the use of encryption to cover any content moving between it and its customers, any transmissions between its data centers, and data stored on its servers -- all of this is said to be in place by the end of 2014.
In terms of court orders that may push it to reveal data, Microsoft is committing to notify "business and government" customers of any legal orders, and if it is prevented from doing so by a gag order, says it will challenge those in court. Finally, it's expanding the existing program giving governments access to its source code so they can make sure it doesn't contain any back doors. According to Reuters, this will put Microsoft on par with other Internet companies like Amazon Web Services, Yahoo and Google for how it treats data. Still, while that may help foreign diplomats feel better about logging into Outlook or Skype, there are probably a few individuals who will keep their tin foil hats on, Kinect cameras covered and cellphones off.
Filed under: Internet, Microsoft
Source: Microsoft TechNet Blog
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/presentation-what-is-bitcoin-2013-3
Is Bitcoin the new gold?
Some former gold bugs certainly think so.
And its value has skyrocketedin recent months.
But many readers at this point are probably wondering ... what exactly is Bitcoin?
Robert McNally, an iOS developer at parking payment startup QuickPay, gave the following presentation to last year's Hackers' Conference in Santa Cruz, answering exactly that question.
With his kind permission, we have republished it here.
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/04/skyjack-parrot-drone-raspberry-pi/
There might come a time when you'll wait for a drone instead of a truck for your Amazon or UPS package, while worrying about tech-savvy thieves instead of armed robbers. Let's just hope no ne'er-do-well uses Samy Kamkar's SkyJack for evil, because the software can worm its way into flying machines to take over their brains. Kamkar, who hacks things presumably to spread security awareness, loaded the offending code onto a Raspberry Pi-equipped Parrot AR.Drone 2.0. The result is a flying contraption that's capable of seeking out other drones' wireless signals and forcefully severing their connection from their true owners. Worse, the software works just as well installed on a land-based computer.
Curious folks can check out Kamkar's video after the break for a quick demo, but those tech-savvy enough can get a deeper understanding through SkyJack's source code. The system can only hijack drones with Parrot's WiFi MAC addresses at this point, but here's hoping companies take note and make future delivery drones more secure just in case.
Filed under: Misc
Via: SlashGear
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/03/google-mobile-chrome-apps/
Google's been shepherding web applications to the desktop as packaged Chrome apps (think the browser-based Google Keep) for a while now, and it turns out the search titan is building a tool to help them go mobile. The Next Web noticed that Googler Michal Mocny has been hard at work on a project dubbed Mobile Chrome Apps that's been hosted on Github since May. The repository's description reveals the code is a toolkit for porting Chrome packaged apps to ones that will run on Android and iOS by using Apache Cordova (formerly known as PhoneGap). Though the applications will retain their HTML, CSS and Javascript innards, they'll look like native apps and can even be submitted to their respective app stores. While the software is publicly available, it's not expected to be in beta form until January. Ready to lunge into development anyway? Venture to the source and hack away.
Via: The Next Web
Source: Mobile Chrome Apps (Github)
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/03/vuzix-m100-smart-glasses-now-available-to-pre-order/
If you want Android-powered eyewear that's readily available, you won't have to wait for Glass' commercial launch next year; Vuzix has already beaten Google to the punch. The company's M100 Smart Glasses have started shipping to developers, and the general public can now pre-order the eyepiece ahead of its expected December release date. Do be prepared to pay for the privilege of seeing your Android and iOS apps on a heads-up display, however. The M100 will officially sell for $1,000 -- about twice as much as Vuzix predicted in January.
Filed under: Cellphones, Wearables, Mobile
Via: Electronista
Source: Vuzix, PRNewswire
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/12/03/square-viewfinder/
If you're in the market for a few more engineers, you could go through the rigamarole of posting a listing on some job site - or you could just pick up a whole team. The small staff behind photo-sharing app Viewfinder will be setting up shop in Square's New York offices, including co-founders Spencer Kimball and Peter Mattis, who'd previously done time at Google and created image editor GIMP. While Square's engineering blog happily talks up the fact that the move will effectively triple the company's NYC staff, no mention is made regarding the fate of Viewfinder itself, which may not bode well for the future of the app.
Filed under: Google
Via: Techcrunch
Source: Square
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/kyle-bass-interview-in-steve-drobny-book-2013-12
Hedge fund advisor Steven Drobny, the author of global macro books "Inside The House of Money" and "The Invisible Hands", is coming out with another book called "The New House of Money."
Drobny has just released the first chapter available for free on his website. It's a Q&A with Texan hedge fund manager Kyle Bass.
Bass, who runs Dallas-based Hayman Capital, crushed it by shorting subprime.
In his interview with Drobny, Bass discussed a gamut of topics, including how he got into the hedge fund business and how he stays grounded by spear fishing in the Bahamas. Bass also talked extensively about his Japan trade where he's been predicting a debt collapse for some time. Bass said that he's also worried about inflation. He thinks that globally we're going to be hit with the "ugly kind" of inflation (cost-push inflation) due to having too much money in the system.
Bass also revealed the worst trade he has ever made and what he learned from that experience.
From "The New House Of Money":
What was the worst trade of your career?
The second company I ever sold short was a disaster. The first one was actually a great trade. It was an East German shipbuilder that was being heavily subsidized by the government when the Berlin Wall came down. The executives were not applying the subsidies to the shipyards. We shorted the stock around 100 Deutsche marks and it never saw an uptick – it went from 100 to 80 to 60 to 40 to 20 to zero, where they were literally chaining the gates after that.
The second short was a technology company. The COO had just quit under suspicious circumstances and in doing our homework on the capital structure we figured it could be a zero.
Right after we got short this stock, an active and influential newsletter at the time came out and said they thought it was the stock of the century. It doubled! on me s o fast that it carried me out. All the money I had saved up until that time was literally gone. I did an enormous amount of work on the balance sheet, met with some of the players, thought I understood what was going wrong, had almost all of the data, and in the end,
was even right. But I just couldn’t withstand the move.
It was such a beautiful learning experience because I came from no money. I was so broke in college. I came from a middle class family, and by that point I had made a few hundred thousand dollars and saved it, and it was gone. I was apoplectic.
When I think back now, thankfully it happened to me then – it only cost me a couple hundred thousand bucks, and it was the most important lesson in short selling that anyone could ever learn. It taught me the humility and the respect that you must have when you’re on the short side of anything. It wound up being one of the best things that ever happened to me.
What do you do differently today with short sales?
We do a lot differently. We do short individual equities from time to time, but we short with respect, experience, and proper sizing and stop-loss levels.
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Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/coffee-machine-roasts-grinds-and-brews-2013-11
Truly fresh coffee is hard to come by, since it takes the average bean six months from when its harvested to reach your cup.
The Bonaverde Coffee Changers company in Berlin is trying to change that and cut out the coffee middleman with a new machine that not only grinds and brews coffee beans, but roasts them as well.
The machine has a rotary system in a stainless-steal container that heats up and roasts the raw beans at the desired setting. After 3-4 minutes, the beans are cooled, and then ground and brewed with pre-heated water.
The project has been in development for the past two years after founder Hans Stier had a vision to put farmers more in control of their beans. The company currently has relationships with farmers from Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, India and Brazil that sell their beans directly through Bonaverde, thereby cutting out the "roasting middleman" and giving the farmer more control over — and money for — his beans.
Now after testing four earlier prototypes, Bonaverde Coffee Changers has finally reached the final step of its two-year-long project. The team of German engineers currently has a Kickstarter campaign to create working machines for serial production with early-bird delivery expected in October of next year.
There are still 9 days left to go, and the all-in-one coffee machine has already earned $459,740 dollars, well above their Kickstarter goal of $135,00! 0. Find out more about the coffee machine or order your own (with raw beans included) over at Kickstarter for $300.
SEE ALSO: The 10 Best Coffee Shops In San Francisco
Join the conversation about this story »
Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/28/gigaset-gets-into-android-tablets-with-two-models/
You likely won't know Germany's Gigaset unless you've bought one of its cordless phones, but you may want to take notice now that the company is launching its first tablets. Both the 8-inch QV830 and 10-inch QV1030 have relatively upscale aluminum shells and run stock Android 4.2, all the while targeting very different audiences. The QV1030 is the high-speed flagship with a 1.8GHz quad-core Tegra 4 processor, a 2,560 x 1,600 display, 16GB of expandable storage and both 8-megapixel rear as well as 1.2-megapixel front cameras. The QV830 aims at a more frugal crowd with its 1.2GHz quad-core MediaTek chip, 1,024 x 768 screen, 8GB of expandable storage, 5-megapixel rear camera and 1.2-megapixel front shooter. Both slates should reach Germany in early December, starting at €199 ($271) for the QV830 and jumping to €369 ($502) for the QV1030. There's no word of an American launch, although we're not counting on it when Gigaset doesn't have much of a footprint in the US.
[Thanks, Martino]
Filed under: Tablets
Via: Tabletsmagazine.nl (translated)
Source: Gigaset (1), (2), GlobeNewswire
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