Is privacy loss inevitable?

People who use smart devices that monitor what they do will have to get used to giving up some privacy, warns a top technologist.

Prof Will Stewart of the Institution of Engineering and Technology said privacy loss was "intrinsic" to such gadgets.

His comments come after Samsung warned about a voice activation feature on some of its televisions.

It warned people to avoid talking about personal issues in front of their TV in case it grabbed sensitive information.

Teen Faces Murder Charge After Posing for Snapchat Selfie with Victim

A 16-year-old from Pennsylvania is facing murder charges after allegedly killing a classmate and sharing a picture of himself with the victim’s body over Snapchat.

Maxwell Marion Morton was charged with first-degree murder last Friday reports the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, after police were shown a photo of Morton at the murder scene of classmate Ryan Mangan, also 16. Morton reportedly shared the picture over Snapchat, but a recipient took a screenshot to save the photo, and his mother contacted the authorities.

"(Police) received a copy of the photo, which depicted the victim sitting in the chair with a gunshot wound to the face," the Tribune-Reviewreports the police affidavit as saying. “It also depicts a black male taking the ‘selfie,’ with his face facing the camera and the victim behind the actor. The photo had the name ‘Maxwell’ across the top.”

Morton reportedly sent texts with the photo: “Told you I cleaned up the shells.”

Morton also allegedly sent a number of texts alongside the photo, saying, “Told you I cleaned up the shells,” and, “Ryan was not the last one.” The Pennsylvania teenager confessed to killing Mangan after police searched his home and found a 9mm handgun hidden under the basement steps.

District Attorney John Peck described the picture as “a key piece of evidence that led investigators to the defendant,” but said that it was the first time he’d ever encountered a “selfie” taken with a dead victim. Social media has given scores of individuals the chance to incriminate themselves, from admitting to drunk driving on Facebook to automatically sharing pictures from a stolen iPad.

Calm Down :Your Samsung Smart TV isn’t spying on you

Before you waterboard your TV in an attempt to extract the secrets it has learned about you, allow us to explain exactly how these TVs work, and why they aren’t the emissaries of evil they’re being made out to be.

The charge

The apparent epicenter for this tidal wave of TV terror appears to be this Reddit post, which cites the following excerpt from Samsung’s Smart TV Privacy Policy: “Please be aware that if your spoken words include personal or other sensitive information, that information will be among the data captured and transmitted to a third party through your use of Voice Recognition.”

Granted, that sounds pretty nefarious, especially when taken out of context. Unfortunately, Samsung’s overly succinct description is missing some critical context. Namely, it doesn’t say when the spoken words are captured, under what conditions data is transmitted to a third party, or who that third party is.

We asked Samsung to clear up all of these questions, and frankly, the conspiracy theorists might be giving these “smart” TVs too much credit.

Tablets processing power to overtake consoles in four years, says EA CFO

Given the rate at which mobile processing power is growing, handheld devices like tablets could soon overtake consoles to become an integral part of gaming, according to EA chief financial officer Blake Jorgensen.

Speaking at the 2015 Technology, Internet & Media Conference, Jorgensen said, “what that might mean is that a tablet, three or four years from now, has more power than what a typical console has.

Apple captured 93% of smartphone profits during Q4 last year by canaccord

Apple captured 93% of smartphone profits during Q4 last year, according to leading financial services company Canaccord Genuity, which has raised its price target on the Cupertino-based company to $145 from $135.

Analyst Mike Walkley said that market data suggests continued strength for the iPhone 6 upgrade cycle, and predicted that by the end of the year 2018, the iPhone maker may have a third of all smartphone users.

As you can see in the chart shown above, Apple and Samsung are the only two companies to register significant profits in the industry during Q4 last year. For the whole of 2014, Apple captured 79% of profits.

Exynos Galaxy S4 in India now recieving lollipop udate

Samsung has already updated the GPE model and the I9506 Galaxy S4 with Android 5 Lollipop. It recently begun seeding Lollipop to the Exynos-based I9500 Galaxy S4 flavor in Russia, too.

As promised, the I9500 is the next major Samsung Galaxy S4 model to get the latest Android version. The second market to get the Lollipop treatment is India. The update is now available there over the air and weighs about 990MB. This means you must have at least 3GB free space before updating.

Naturally, if your Samsung Galaxy S4 model is locked to a specific carrier it may took some extra time before the Lollipop updates reaches you because of the additional testing required.

The Snapdragon 600-running I9505 Galaxy S4 will be next to taste Lollipop. The update is already in testing and should begin rolling out very soon.

Xperia E4 and E4 Dual quietly unveiled

Sony just announced the Xperia E4. It has a bigger screen than the Xperia E3, a similar a quad-core processor and 1GB RAM, plus a 5MP/1080p camera. It doesn’t have LTE though, what it does have is a dual-SIM version similar to the Xperia E3 and E1.

While it's not perfectly clear which phone is being replaced by the Xperia E4, but it will be Sony's first phone to launch with Android 5.0 Lollipop.

   
Sony Xperia E4

£2.3 million iPhone 6 created by Goldgenie

Motorola lets you pick a wood or leather back for the Moto X (2015)? That's cute, Goldgenie lets you pick between diamonds, sapphires, rubies, topaz and emeralds to put on your 24K Gold, Rose gold or Platinum iPhone 6. Of course, those aren’t color names, those are the actual materials. You can top it off with Swarovski crystals on the Apple logo.

The diamonds – white, pink or black – are used to coat the sides of the device, leading to the name Diamond Ecstasy. Goldgenie is kind enough to offer you the option of bigger diamonds, so that you don't get laughed out of the private island club.

  
iPhone 6 Diamond Ecstasy in 24K Gold, Rose Gold or Platinum

The price is unspeakable – a run of the mill Rose Gold or Platinum iPhone 6 costs as little as £1,500 ora limited edition for £2,500. This one though costs £2.3 million ($3.5 million).

That’s the base price, by the way, you can always hop on your private jet and fly out to Goldgenie HQ and take a hands-on approach with the customizations. We don't imagine there's a ceiling on the final price, just try not to disrupt the EU's economy.

Nikon announces D810A for astrophotography

Nikon has launched a modified version of its D810 DSLR, the D810A. This version is targeted specifically at those who do astrophotography and features a modified infrared filter for that.

Most cameras have an IR cut filter that is designed to allow only those wavelengths of light that the human eye can see, so that the resulting image looks similar to what it looks to the human eye. However, the light emitted by far away stars and galaxies are often well beyond our visual range, and in order to capture them properly, you need a camera designed specifically for such application.

Rumor Says Windows 10 RTM will happen in June

According to a new rumor on the matter, Microsoft is targeting June as the month during which Windows 10 will be “released to manufacturing” (RTM). Once it hits RTM, the OS will be finalized, with no additions coming in after that point. The RTM process refers to Microsoft giving the finalized OS bits to its partners – some of which build computers running the software, and others who actually write those Windows DVDs people still apparently buy.

Obviously this is a rumor and nothing more at this point.

Microsoft Office 2016 preview is now available

Microsoft Office 2016 preview is now available for users who are willing to commit to a non-disclosure agreement. The Redmond giant will officially release Office 2016 later this year.

The upcoming Office release is available through Microsoft Connect. The productivity suite features a new, dark theme and a virtual assistant. The latter is rumored to offer Cortana integration.

Interested? Hit the source link below to get your hands on the Office 2016 preview.

Skype for Android updated with support for offline photo sharing

Skype has updated its Android app to version 5.2, bringing some really useful features including offline photo sharing, support for picture-in-picture view, reduced chat loading times, and call quality improvements.

The updated app lets you send photos to your offline contacts, something which wasn’t previously possible.

On Feb.24 64GB Xiaomi Mi 4 will be on sale in India

After quite a few delays, the Xiaomi Mi 4 is due to finally be up for grabs in India starting today, through a series of flash sales. This is the company's normal way of doing business, so nothing out of the ordinary here.

But today you'll only be able to pick up the 16GB white version of the smartphone. If you like the Mi 4 but were hoping for some more built-in space, then you'll have to wait until February 24.

The Chinese company has officially announced that it will start selling the 64GB Mi 4 in India on that day. The 64GB variant will cost INR 23,999, which at the current exchange rates means around $386 or €341.

The 16GB model is going to be offered for INR 19,999, which is about $322 or €284. This is so far only going to be made available in white. It's still unclear whether the higher-storage variation will be in the same situation.

Microsoft schedules MWC press conference for March 2

Following quite a few Android device makers, Microsoft announced yesterday that it too will hold a special press conference during MWC 2015 in Barcelona in March.

Specifically, the software giant will talk to the press on March 2 at 8.30 AM local time. That's one day after Samsung's big event, by the way.

Microsoft hasn't given us any information as to what exactly it will talk about, but it's safe to assume we're going to see some new phones getting unveiled.

iOS 8.3 beta is seeding to registered developers

Apple began seeding iOS 8.3 beta to registered developers. The Cupertino giant launched the new build barely a week after it released iOS 8.2 beta 5, thus indicating that it is hard at work on improving its mobile OS.

The latest iOS build brings a number of new features to the platform headed by wireless CarPlay support. The functionality was previously available only via USB cable.

Google login has been improved as well. A brand new emoji picker is also on board.

Finally, iOS 8.3 code suggests that Apple Pay is headed to China via Union Pay. Access to the vast Chinese market is certain to give Apple’s payment system a massive boost.

It will surely be a while before iOS 8.3 makes its way to end users. Apple is yet to begin seeding iOS 8.2 to its mobile hardware.

The latest iOS beta arrives amid rumors about the next major release of Cupertino’s mobile platform. Apple iOS 9 is tipped to focus on improved optimization and stability.

Apple IOS9 focuses on Bug Fixes and Stability improvments

According to a new report online, Apple’s upcoming iOS 9 will not bring the usual host of new features as its predecessors. Codenamed Monarch, Cupertino’s next major iOS release will focus on bug fixes and overall stability improvements.

Some new features will of course make their way into iOS 9. However, optimizing the OS is going to be the major focus of Apple’s team of engineers - hardly a surprise considering the bevy of issues iOS 8 initially carried.