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Google Fined In Germany Over Street View Data Collection

A German privacy regulator fined Google €145,000 on Monday for its systematic, illegal collection of personal data while it was creating its Street View mapping service, and it called on European lawmakers to significantly raise fines for violations of data protection laws.

It found that while specially equipped Google vehicles took city snapshots between 2008 and 2010 for its Street View function, which supplements its standard map service, they had also picked up data from unsecured wireless networks.

“Among the information gathered in the drive-bys were significant amounts of personal data of varying quality. For example emails, passwords, photos and chat protocols were collected,” the Hamburg authorities said in a statement.

Hamburg data regulator Johannes Caspar explained: “In my view, this is one of the biggest data protection rules violations known,” said Caspar. Google’s “internal control mechanisms must have severely failed.”

It not the first time Google as been fined for such a breach of data protection, with the French privacy regulator levying a €100,000 penalty on Google in 2011. However Google has now tightened up its policy with using the Google Street View car systems to address issues raised in the latest data protection violation, Peter Fleischer, Google’s global privacy counsel, said in a statement.

The commissioner also ordered Google to delete all the data it had gathered. A third party verified that Google indeed deleted the data.

Google said it would not appeal the fine.

[The Guardian]

April 22, 2013
Rumour : Start Button To Make A Return In Microsoft Windows 8.1

Microsoft, which is being berated for taking out the Start button from Windows 8, may put it back in the next major Windows update known as Windows Blue.

The classic Start menu which Windows users have come to know and love over the years, was missing in Windows 8, which was released in October 2012, resulting in an unprecedented backlash.

The Verge is also reporting that plans have been revealed to them to indeed bring back the Windows 8 start button together with the boot to desktop option also rumoured earlier this month.

According to another report by Microsoft insider Paul Thurrott, Microsoft’s Executives are the ones who are overruling objections from the Windows team about bringing back the Start button. “And I’ve separately confirmed that this is really happening, with the Start button, in particular, driven by upper management, which overruled objections from the Windows team,” Thurrott added.

It turns out, however, that Windows 8.1’s Start button will have a different behavior as compared to the traditional one, according to a report by The Verge. Microsoft is looking to bring us a Start button that would launch the Start Screen, instead of a Start Menu.

Microsoft hasn’t said a thing about such a feature, so more details will most likely be provided in June at the BUILD developer conference when the company is expected to unveil the public beta of the new OS.

Recent reports are that the global computer market fell 14% in the first quarter of 2013 with market analysts IDC putting the blame squarely on Microsoft’s shoulders with a lacklustre launch of Windows 8.

But if Microsoft brings the Start button back and adds in a few new tricks into Windows 8.1, combine that with the new Intel Haswell chips on the way and it could make for a very different second-half of the year for computer fans.

[The Verge, Geeky Gadgets]

April 22, 2013
Bing Answers Critics, Says It Blocks “94% Of Clicks To Malicious Sites”

Bing has responded to the malware study conducted by AV-TEST earlier this week, claiming that Bing search results led to five times more malware than Google.

To that Bing said, “the conclusions many have drawn from the study are wrong.”

A blog post by Bing said :

AV-TEST didn’t actually do any searching on bing.com. Rather they used a Bing API to execute a number of queries and downloaded the result to their system for further analysis. By using the API instead of the user interface, AV-TEST bypassed our warning system designed to keep customers from being harmed by malware. Bing actually does prevent customers from clicking on malware infected sites by disabling the link on the results page and showing the below message to stop people from going to the site.

Overall, Bing says it shows results with malware warnings for about 0.04 percent of searches. Microsoft’s senior program manager for Bing David Felstead also claims that Bing’s warning system blocks “94% of clicks to malicious sites.”

We show results with warnings for about 0.04% of all searches, meaning about 1 in 2,500 search result pages will have a result with a malware warning on it. Of those, only a small proportion of malicious links ever get clicked and the warning therefore triggered, so a user will see the warning only 1 in every 10,000 searches. In any case, the overall scale of the problem is very small.

Felstead later points out a search term that can be entered into Google that results in malicious results.

[SearchEngineLand, TechCrunch, Bing]

April 20, 2013
Apple Dealt Blow As Top Chip Designer Raja Koduri Leaves For AMD

Raja Koduri has returned to a position with GPU company AMD from a 4-year appointment with Apple.

For the past 4 years Raja Koduri has been working on all things graphics at Apple, but now thanks to a great offer and a fear of getting too comfortable at Apple, he’s back at AMD.

Raja Koduri, 44, will lead engineering efforts in visual computing, reporting to Chief Technology Officer Mark Papermaster, another former Apple executive, Sunnyvale, California-based AMD said in a statement today.

Mr. Koduri was instrumental in the past, with ATI Technologies winning over the Xbox deal from Nvidia, as well as paving path to future business wins with Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo and so on. However, in 2009, Mr. Koduri was disillusioned about the path AMD-ATI was taking, and left the company – taking the role as Chief Technology Officer for Graphics at Apple Inc. That role later moved to Director of Graphics Architecture, Apple.

AMD Chief Executive Officer Rory Read is remaking the company to develop new processor technology, part of an effort to differentiate its products from those of larger rival Intel Corp. and open up new markets outside of PCs. Global PC shipments fell 14 percent in the three months that ended in March, the steepest quarterly drop on record and worse than the 7.7 percent decline forecast by research-firm IDC.

Raja believes there’s likely another 15 years ahead of us of good work in high-end discrete graphics, so we’ll continue to see AMD focus on that part of the market. However, Raja’s efforts will span everything from discrete GPUs to its own APU/SoC strategy.

After the company bled numerous brilliant minds, seeing people like Jim Keller, Roy Taylor, Colette LaForce, John Gustafson and now Raja Koduri all joining AMD – it is clear that the company is rebuilding itself.

[AnandTech]

April 20, 2013
Apple Keeps Your Siri Data For Two Years

Apple has revealed that it holds on to voice data that users submit to Siri for up to two years.

Siri keeps your personalized data collected and stored on its servers whenever you pick up your iPhone and ask her a question. The Cupertino firm also assured customers that the files it retains become disassociated from the user after six months, or if they deactivate the personal assistant.

Responding to questions raised by the American Civil Liberties Union yesterday, Apple on Friday dispatched its spokeswoman Trudy Muller who explained to Wired the firm’s data retention policy governing Siri.

Apple may keep anonymized Siri data for up to two years. If a user turns Siri off, both identifiers are deleted immediately along with any associated data.

Based on the information Muller provided, Wired’s Robert McMillan explains exactly what happens when you use Siri:

Whenever you speak into Apple’s voice activated personal digital assistant, it ships it off to Apple’s data farm for analysis. Apple generates a random numbers to represent the user and it associates the voice files with that number. This number — not your Apple user ID or email address — represents you as far as Siri’s back-end voice analysis system is concerned.

Citing the Apple spokeswoman, the site reveals that the company makes sure the data is anonymized. Apple “only collects the Siri voice clips in order to improve Siri itself,” it says.

However, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who had previously raised privacy questions about Siri says Apple should take additional steps to protect its users’ privacy.

According to Nicole Ozer, “There is no good reason for Apple to not include information about privacy practices on their Siri FAQ page.”

[Wired]

April 19, 2013
Google MyGlass App Leak Reveals Multiplayer Gaming In Upcoming Android

A teardown of the MyGlass Google Glass companion app reveals that Google may have plans for a gaming service similar to Apple’s Game Center.

Android Police discovered the complete feature list for a gaming service when tearing down the MyGlass application that will accompany the Google Glass AR specs.

According to the website, Google usually ships apps with a few Google-powered components that some apps depend on to work but Google accidentally shipped all of them, even though the service has no connection with Google Glass.

The underground Games service will feature support for real-time multiplayer games allowing users to play games with other connected players, as per the website. It would also apparently support turn-based multiplayer games such as board games where players take chances to play, and the teardown reveals that users will also get notifications when it’s their turn.

Users would also be able to chat with other players within the game in real-time multiplayer mode, in addition to offering leader boards and allowing users to keep a track of achievements.

The game service will bring in the ability to invite friends and will come with a ‘Lobbies’ feature through which users will be able to chat before a game begins, plan strategies, rules, and choose teams.

If Google could create their own gaming service for Android and include some killer features, it could look much more attractive than iOS’s gaming offerings.

Android Police has concluded that this gaming service is nearly finished, speculating that we might be able to learn more about it during Google I/O.

[Android Police, SlashGear]

April 19, 2013
Google Reveals $14 Billion Revenue In Q1 Earnings

Google presented its Q1 2013 earnings today and, overall, the company looks to be in good shape. Revenues of $13.97 billion were down slightly from the always-hot previous quarter, but that number was in line with analysts’ expectations. More impressive was the $3.35 billion net income, which was up over 30% from the same period a year ago.

Motorola Mobility continued to shed money, gross revenue of $1.02 billion and a net loss of $271 million. Patrick Pichette, Google’s CFO, said, ”We’re pleased with the velocity of change at Motorola Mobility. We’re excited about the future, but results will continue to be variable.” The amounts of lower, both in revenue and money lost, than the previous quarter, which means internal money-saving measures, in addition to the substantial number of jobs shed, are making a difference.

The company hasn’t released a product since September of last year, but 2013 promises to be one of big changes in the company. Now fully integrated into Google, we’re hearing rumours that the X-Phone will be “phenomenal” and come in up to 20 colours (don’t hold your breath), in addition to being much more manageably-sized. Motorola has also promised to stick fairly close to the stock Android experience, though whether that, along with Google’s help, will be enough to regain much of its lost brand recognition and market share remains to be seen.

Last year was Google’s first $50 billion revenue year, and CEO Larry Page said that the three pillars of the business — Chrome, Android and Ads — would continue to be the focus in 2013. The company is activating 1.5 million Android devices every day and with the release of Google Glass to developers this week, there’s yet another platform on which users can expect to see Google dominate.

April 19, 2013
Leaked : Alleged Low-Cost iPhone’s Rear Plastic Shell

Despite nothing resembling an acknowledgment from Apple that the company is indeed planning to unveil a low-end iPhone, the rumor just won’t go away. Now, we have our first look at what may in fact be the shell of the budget iPhone.

Spotted by case manufacturer Tactus apparently during a factory tour of a plant that provides parts to Foxconn, the shell shown is a polycarbonate build, finished in white, and not dissimilar to the back casings of the iPhone 3G and 3GS.

Where it differs is in its flatness – the 3GS and 3G had curved designs – which could effectively cut manufacturing costs due to the simplicity to produce such shapes, as well as setting the style apart from the older models in what would be set to become Apple’s premium range. The people at Tactus also say that this shell is a bit taller, wider and thicker than the iPhone 4, but shorter than the iPhone 5.

The source of this leak is also claiming it’ll come with an A5 chip, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and come in five color options: black, white, blue, red and yellow. Its release date is being expected to be on October 15 and priced at only $300, which is certainly a much lower price than the current iPhone 5.

Last week Tactus leaked a purported iPad 5 mold case.

We’re still treating budget iPhone rumours with a pinch of salt, but at least this time there’s a physical object to go with the rumours, regardless of whether its been faked or not!

So what do you guys think? Would you be disappointed if Apple released an iPhone looking like that?

[Tactus]

April 18, 2013
Nokia Reports $196 Million Loss In Q1 2013 Earnings

Nokia posted an operating loss of €150 million (PDF), or around $196 million, today on around $7.65 billion in revenue, with a total revenue for the quarter reaching €5.85 billion ($7.65 billion), which is down from €7.35 billion ($9.6 billion) during the same time last year.

However, despite the losses, Nokia Lumia sales have hit a record high of 5.6 million in Q1 2013. This is up from 4.4 million during the previous quarter. In the same quarter last year, Nokia only sold two million Lumia smartphones, so that’s less than double of what they’re selling now. Since shipping their first Windows Phone device in November 2011, Nokia has just under 20 million Lumias.

At the highest level, we are pleased that Nokia Group achieved underlying operating profitability for the third quarter in a row. While operating in a highly competitive environment, Nokia is executing our strategy with urgency and managing our costs very well.

We have areas where we are making progress, and areas where we are further increasing the focus. For example, people are responding positively to the Lumia portfolio, and our volumes are increasing quarter over quarter. Nokia Siemens Networks delivered another strong quarter and contributed to an overall improvement in Nokia Group’s cash position. On the other hand, our Mobile Phones business faces a difficult competitive environment, and we are taking tactical actions and bringing new innovation to market to address our challenges.

All of these efforts are aimed at improving our financial performance and delivering more value to our shareholders

Nokia’s total smartphone volumes in Q4 2012 were 15.9 million units – 9.3 million Asha full-touch ‘smartphones’, 4.4 million Lumia smartphones and 2.2 million Symbian smartphones. That was noteworthy as it was the first that Lumia device numbers had exceeded those of Symbian.

[The Next Web]

April 18, 2013
You Can Buy Your Very Own Pair Of Google Glass! If You Have Rs 4,87,4400

Google Glass is nearing it’s completion and will very soon be available to to the 2,000 developers who had pre-ordered the device last year. Also, the people who’d taken part in Google’s #ifihadglass contest, and won a pair of these technological marvels, are beginning to receive their units.

Google’s #ifihadglass contest advertised for “bold, creative individuals” to start carrying pre-production builds of Glass later this year. The contest apparently also looked for prosperous individuals willing to pay $1,500 for the prize, plus travel expense to pick it up.

If you weren’t one of the lucky winners, the chosen ones, then you don’t need to feel disappointed. You can own your very own pair of Google Glass now! If you have Rs. 4,87,4400/- that is.

As Engadget reports, a seller on eBay has put up his unit for sale and has priced it at $90,000. The seller is an eBay member since 2004, and has a 100% positive feedback.

It’s not quite clear how Google will respond to this listing, as it had clearly laid out the terms to the developers receiving the devices that they were not to be gifted or sold.

Guess we will find out!

In terms of specs, Google Glass will feature a 640 x 360 display, which according to Google is “equivalent of a 25 inch high definition screen from eight feet away,” The device will come with a 5 megapixel camera, that’s capable of shooting videos in 720p.

The device gets 16GB of onboard storage, out of which only 12GB is accessible by the user and it will sync with Google’s cloud storage service.

[Engadget]

April 17, 2013
Google : 1.5 Million Android Devices Are Being Activated Everyday

Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, has confirmed to the press that the company is activating 1.5 million Android devices every day.

That’s 200,000 additional devices per day than the most recent status update, when Google shared in September that 1.3 million Android devices were being activated daily.

Schmidt made these remarks during All Things D’s Dive Into Mobile conference, where he stated that Android has 700,000 apps available.

Schmidt also talked about some things that would hep spur on more growth. Pricing is definitely on their mind, and device for the $100 price point is something that Google will be hitting quickly. Could we assume a new Nexus tablet at Google I/O that is $99? Quite possibly.

The vocal CEO also stated he believes there will be one billion Android phones in the world by the end of the year, up from a projected 750 million stated some time ago.

Of course, Schmidt didn’t just talk numbers the entire time, because that would be boring. He touched on subjects like Facebook Home and the Maps situation with Apple.

When asked if Google was worried about Facebook Home, Schmidt dismissed the idea entirely.

“We’re phenomenally happy that people are using Android in these ways. You can’t have half-open source. It’s open source,” Schmidt said.

“From our perspective, we really want them to use [Google Maps],” Schmidt said. “It’d be easy to take the app in the store and use it as their basic one.”

[Engadget]

April 17, 2013
Windows 8.1 Build 9369 Leaked, Reveals ‘Metro’ File Explorer

A new build of Windows 8.1 has surfaced on file sharing networks this week along with a host of screenshots providing a fresh look at Microsoft’s plans for its Windows 8 upgrade. The latest leak shows some new features including a file explorer in the Metro interface, new animations, greater SkyDrive integration and others.

The leaked build 9369 hit the web a few hours ago but users are already starting to uncover features that were not present in the previous leaked Windows 8.1 build such as the new Files app. This application may be the file manager for Windows 8.1 and we are getting another look at the application courtesy of build 9369.

The video and screenshots posted online reveal a file explorer app in the Metro apps list, that allows you to explore system files as well as SkyDrive files. There is a new button on the Metro start screen for accessing the app list, clicking on that takes you to the apps list. The little orb will disappear if you use a touch screen PC. The apps can be sorted by name, date installed and most used. The apps page also includes a search bar at the top corner.

Image Courtesy : Neowin

Snap view has also been updated to make it easier for you to choose where you want to Snap the app to, even featuring a cool animation. This feature makes it easier than ever to see exactly where your app is being snapped to.

It’s not yet clear if Microsoft plans to make “Files” part of the final version of Windows 8.1, but more information will probably be provided in June at the BUILD developer conference.

[Neowin]

April 17, 2013
Apple Named In China Porn App Probe

Apple has been named in an article listing several websites and app stores being investigated in China for providing pornographic content.

The People’s Daily article is not featured prominently in Wednesday’s paper, nor does it make efforts to emphasize Apple, which is listed next to the names of other app stores singled out in the middle of the second paragraph of the article. According to Apple’s terms of use, pornographic content is not allowed on its app store.

Apple has been scrutinized by the Chinese government over pornographic content before, and it’s not the only major company to come under fire for this. Back in 2009, Chine Central Television accused Google of spreading pornography, leading to hacks that cause Google to move its operations to Hong Kong the following year.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, the Chinese government is better known for its crackdowns on politically sensitive content, but it has also long sought to keep pornography off the web in China. To accomplish this quixotic task, it has launched repeated campaigns to block illicit material online, shuttered hundreds of websites and blog accounts, and even called Internet executives into industry-wide meetings to call for greater vigilance. Occasionally the Chinese government will use bans on pornography to censor politically sensitive content, according to analysts.

Apple was recently criticized by Chinese media over its hardware warranty policy, forcing CEO Tim Cook to publicly apologize and announce a few changes to that policy.

[Wall Street Journal]

April 17, 2013
Micromax Bolt A51 Now Available Online, Priced At Rs. 4,599

Following in the footsteps of the A35 Bolt, launched in February, Micromax has expanded the series with the Micromax Bolt A51, which is now available online. It is priced at Rs 4,599/-.

The Micromax Bolt A51 is powered by an 832MHz Broadcom processor and comes with a 3.5-inch HVGA display. The smartphone runs on dated Android 2.3.7 (Gingerbread). There is a 1500 mAh battery, which as per the company, gives 4.5 hours of talktime and standby time of 140 hours. At the back there is a 2-megapixel camera and 0.3-megapixel front camera. It is a dual-SIM smartphone that comes with 256MB of RAM and 512MB of ROM with microSD card slot to accommodate up to 32GB cards. Connectivity options include 3G, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth.

The Micromax Bolt A51 comes with pre-loaded applications such as MiStore and MiBuddy.

With its low-price tag and pretty descent features, Bolt A51 poses a stiff challenge to Nokia’s Asha series and Samsung’s Rex series affordable smartphones. It will also be competing with the likes of Samsung Galaxy Music Duos, Spice Mi-352 and Intex Aqua Trendy in this price-segment.

April 15, 2013
Xbox Live Outage Forces Gamers Offline During Peak Weekend Hours

The Xbox Live gaming and entertainment platform suffered a major outage for several hours on Saturday, rendering significant elements of the console useless.

Gamers were unable to sign into their accounts so were unable to engage in multiplayer action, or access the suite of entertainment apps that are tied to Xbox Live subscriptions (i.e. Netflix, YouTube, etc.).

In a statement provided to Game Informer, a Microsoft representative informed that the outage was due to routine maintenance. Some individuals had claimed that hacking brought the service down yesterday. But Microsoft assured that this is false.

For the most part, Microsoft has addressed the issue and users are now able to sign in to the service, though some lingering issues remain. For example, Microsoft says users may experience “difficulties” creating new or accessing existing Minecraft game saves, and listening to music via Last.fm is spotty. In both cases, Microsoft says it’s working on a fix.

In the meantime, these problems underscore why gamers take issue with the concept of an always-on console. It’s been rumored that the Xbox 720 (Durango) will feature an always-on Internet requirement, and Microsoft has yet to confirm or deny if the rumors are true. In cases where Microsoft is having problems on its end, an always-on requirement could render the console unusable.

With Xbox Live outages not exactly a once-in-a-blue-moon occurrence, where would this leave gamers every time the company has problems with the online portion of its service?

[Game Informer]

April 15, 2013