Articles and Paparazzi Pictures

The FBI Knows Where You Are, Thanks to Your Cell Phone

webmaster — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:00:42 +0000

A federal appeals court Friday debated a privacy issue you probably hadn’t considered: the government’s ability to track your location at any time, if you carry a cell phone.

As cell phones have morphed from cordless communication devices into pocket-sized PCs, cellular providers have developed and honed the ability to pinpoint your location fairly accurately — potentially to within 150 feet. This helps network operators connect your phone to the nearest cell tower and locate you in an emergency, a federally mandated feature called E9-1-1.

That feature could be a lifesaver if your car runs off a rural road on a dark night. But it also enables the authorities to know your location at all times when you’re carrying your phone.

“Most people don’t understand they are carrying a tracking device in their pockets,” Kevin Bankston, a lawyer with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, told Newsweek.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit in Philadelphia heard arguments on Friday in a case that centers around Philadelphia FBI agent William Shute, who testified that he obtained records 150 times in recent years to track the location of federal fugitives.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union argued in court Friday that the practice raises serious privacy issues. And third U.S. Circuit Judge Dolores Sloviter seemed to share that concern.

“There are governments in the world that would like to know where some of their people are or have been,” Sloviter challenged Justice Department lawyer Mark Eckenwiler, an associate director of criminal enforcement operations.

“Can the government assure us that it will never try to find out these things?” she asked. “Don’t we have to be concerned about this? Not this government right now, but a government?”

Location information is generated when you place a call on your cellular phone; most carriers store that data for a period of time, which varies by carrier.

They don’t store the information for long, and they also don’t track your location when you’re not making calls. But they easily could, says PCMag.com cell phone analyst Sascha Segan.

“At any moment, if your cell phone is on, your provider can tell where you are. Right now, they don’t store that bit of information. But if the government makes that a legal requirement, they might have to.”

It’s technically feasible, Segan explains, and it’s not discussed in your cell phone contract. Contracts detail certain privacy regulations, but all are subject to government laws and regulations. A change in the law would supersede your contract.

The Fourth Amendment guards against illegal search and seizure and will be cited frequently in Friday’s case, but the “right to privacy,” while implied in the Constitution, is not explicitly guaranteed, explains Dr. Abbe Forman, a professor and digital ethics expert with the computer and information science department at Temple University’s College of Science and Tech.

“Many Americans believe that the Constitution guarantees us the ‘right to privacy,’ but that’s not the case,” Forman warned.

She said tracking is a critical tool in emergencies, but she worries that the government may play upon our fears to enhance its snooping powers.

“If we tell people they will be safer because they can be found in case of emergency, most people will look no further for information, even though the great majority of them will never be lost to that extreme,” she said.

After Friday’s hearing, Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., chief author of the 1986 law, said his committee would revisit the legislation this year.

“The question of how best to protect these digital communications, while providing law enforcement with the tools that it needs to keep us safe, has no simple answer. But, what is clear is that our federal electronic privacy laws are woefully outdated,” Leahy said in a statement.

Of course, you can always turn off the tracking by simply turning off your cell phone. And if a criminal picks up a new pay-as-you-go cell phone at the corner store rather than one with a contract — and then throws it away a day later — the government won’t be able to keep up with the IDs on those phones.

“These cases therefore revolve around stupider criminals,” jokes Segan, “the ones who keep a single cell phone and have a monthly relationship with a carrier.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

By Jeremy A. Kaplan

www.foxnews.com

Google Debuts Android-Powered Nexus One Superphone

webmaster — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 13:47:46 +0000

MOUNTAIN VIEW, California — Apple may have the Jesus phone, but today Google rolled out its own “superphone.”

Google unveiled its Nexus One touchscreen handset during a private press-only event at its headquarters here Tuesday. Developed in partnership with hardware manufacturer HTC, the Nexus One is Google’s first branded entry into the smartphone market.

The Nexus One runs the latest version of Google’s Android mobile operating system, allowing for several forward-thinking features. Nexus One users can rely on speech anywhere on the phone where text can be input — users can speak their e-mails, text messages, tweets and web searches. The phone also uses dual-microphone noise cancellation for improved voice quality and speech recognition, and has a vastly improved user interface which incorporates widgets that can pull in live data feeds from web services like Facebook.

“The Nexus One is where web meets phone,” says Google vice president of Android project management Mario Queiroz, pictured above. “It’s an exemplar of what’s possible on mobile phones. It belongs in an emerging category of devices which we call superphones.”

The phone will retail for $180 with a 2-year contract with T-Mobile, but will also be available for $530 unlocked (spot on with the latest speculation). It ships today and is available for purchase immediately at Google’s new online store. The Nexus One will be available on Verizon and Vodaphone networks this spring, Google says.

Google’s Nexus One will not only have to compete against other web-enabled handheld devices like the iPhone and Palm Pre, but also other Android phones such as the Motorola Droid. By releasing its own phone, Google puts itself in direct competition with other members of the Open Handset Alliance (OHA), a consortium of mobile hardware and software developers and carriers, all of whom have been working on Google’s Linux-based Android operating system. It could represent a tricky balance for the company to maintain.

The handset itself is sleek and gorgeous. It’s housed in a thin exterior case less than half an inch (11.5 mm) thick, and it weighs only 4.5 ounces (130 grams). The Nexus One also boasts some impressive hardware. It features a zippy 1-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, which Google says enables the phone to seamlessly run multiple applications at once. A trackball allows users to navigate the interface, and also uses different colored lights to send various alerts — such as a new call or e-mail message. It also sports a 3.7-inch touchscreen AMOLED display with a native resolution of 480 x 800 pixels, a 5-megapixel camera, 512 MB of RAM and ROM, and a microSD slot that’s expandable up to 32 GB of storage (it ships with a 4-GB card). It has a compass and an accelerometer, and light and proximity sensors allow the device to save power by dimming or shutting off the screen. A metal plate on back is designed for personal engraving. There is no hardware keyboard.

Although the Nexus One was only officially unveiled Tuesday, the debut has been highly anticipated for weeks, as Google had all but announced it was on the way. The company gave a pre-release version of the phone to all of its employees just before the holidays, and posted a message to its mobile blog about the “dogfooding” process of testing a new mobile device.

The Nexus One runs Android 2.1, the latest version of Google’s free mobile operating system, and the phone relies on the new software for several key enhancements. For example, every single text field on the device is voice-enabled.

“The evolution we’ve seen around voice recognition in the past year or two has just been phenomenal,” says Google senior product manager Erick Tseng, referring to the company’s Google Voice app and the voice commands on the Google Droid.

“We wanted to take it to the next level.”

Tseng demoed the voice applications, which were impressive. And while the speech-to-text translation was quite zippy, Tseng noted it will continue to learn more and continue to improve with every spoken command.

Other new Android apps demoed on the Nexus One including a weather app that lets you see weather predictions minute-by-minute throughout the day, and a new photo gallery application that re-sizes photos as you scroll through them, or skews the photos when phone is tilted to give the illusion of depth. Google’s Queiroz noted that all members of the OHA will have access to the 2.1 software once it is released in a matter of days.

Google’s new online store is, in some ways, bigger news than the phone itself. It allows the company to interact directly with consumers, just as Apple does. It lets users buy phones with or without service, which also lets Google do an end-run around carriers.

In an ironic twist, Motorola had been invited to the event, but CEO Sanjay Jha got stuck in traffic and arrived nearly an hour and a half late. Jha claimed Motorola was not concerned about Google putting its weight behind a competitor’s product.

“This expansion of the ecosystem is healthy for both of us,” Jha says.

The phone seems pointedly designed to move the United States towards a more European-style model, where consumers buy unlocked phones at a higher, unsubsidized price. The company made point to note this repeatedly during the Q&A session with journalists that followed the demos.

In a move perhaps designed to appease other members of the OHA, the company noted it will link to the Droid and other devices from its web store, and will add Google branding to “any great product.” However, it noted that it’s only going to look at products that succeed both in terms of simplicity and performance.

“It’s not our intention to flood the web store,” said Queiroz.

Google vice president of engineering for mobile Andy Rubin, who has headed up Google’s Android project since its inception, joined the team for the Q&A session.

Rubin left the door open to releasing a free, ad-supported version in the future.

“The first baby step here is: Let’s get an online story going,” he says, “and let’s figure out what they best way to enhance it in the future.”

In response to questions about his previous assertions that Google was not building its own phone, Rubin slyly asked the press to look closely at his previous comments.

“I said Google won’t build hardware,” he says.

Photo: Robert Galbraith/Reuters

By Mathew Honan

www.wired.com

Debut of Google’s Nexus One Phone Expected This Week

webmaster — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 10:25:58 +0000

On Tuesday, Google is expected to unveil its first ever smartphone, the Nexus One, which will mark the search engine giant’s expansion into the much lucrative smartphones market.

The search engine and internet giant already has a strong foothold in the sector with its Android mobile operating system, which has become one of the strongest OS platforms used by some of the most popular devices all over the world.

The Nexus One has reportedly been designed by HTC, the Taiwanese manufacturer which has already introduced devices with an Android platform.

It has been rumored that the Nexus one would cost $530 unlocked, i.e., without any carrier contracts, and currently, would be available with an AT&T two year contract.

Google has been very quiet about the device, and it is expected that it will be one of the most popular devices once released.

On January 5, Google has scheduled a press event, which everyone is expecting will be the platform to debut its phone, and all eyes and ears are now on the event.

by Justin Sorkin

topnews.us

Nokia vs Apple: Round 3

webmaster — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 13:21:20 +0000

After Apple filed its countersuit against Nokia following the latter’s patent infringement suit against Apple, we all knew this was leading to a long drawn legal battle. In the latest update, Nokia has moved to the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC) to investigate into Apple’s infringement of Nokia’s patents in all of its phones, computers and music players. This is an entirely new case and the patents involved this time round are different from those in contention earlier.

According to Nokia, the patents infringed upon include parts of the the user interface, camera, antenna and power management technologies. While we knew that Nokia had already sued Apple over patent infringements, this latest move by Nokia is for an entirely different set of patents. Additionally, these patents apply to a wide range of Apple’s products.

The Press release from Nokia says, “Apple infringes Nokia patents in virtually all of its mobile phones, portable music players, and computers. The seven Nokia patents in this complaint relate to Nokia’s pioneering innovations that are now being used by Apple to create key features in its products in the area of user interface, as well as camera, antenna and power management technologies. These patented technologies are important to Nokia’s success as they allow better user experience, lower manufacturing costs, smaller size and longer battery life for Nokia products.”

It has been noticed that cases solved via the ITC have, on average, seen a faster resolution time compared with mainstream courts of justice. Will this be any different in case of this high profile legal battle? Only time will tell.

www.techtree.com

Sony PS3 Supreme: The most individual and expensive PS3 in the world

webmaster — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 04:44:42 +0000

Nintendo Wii and Play Station (PS series) these are words that all gamers today can relate themselves. But add some diamond and gold craftsmanship to the various models and we have with us an exciting gaming zone which also symbolizes class and style.

This is the principle on which the house of Stuart Hughes excels in. How can we forget the uproar his earlier product the diamond-studded Nintendo Wii had created and now we have another of his masterpiece the new golden Sony PS3 Supreme which is all set to create and even more huge sensation in the gaming industry.

This console is designed in Liverpool UK and comprises of circa 1,600 grams of solid 22 carat gold and its disc loading entrance is encrusted with as many as 58 superbly cut 0.5 carat diamonds. Altogether with the excellent workmanship this latest model of the PS series is priced at 199,995 pounds.

This is truly an exclusive collection of 3 models only, and is set to capture the hearts of one and all, so be quick to place your orders before it is too late.

www.thefirstreporter.com

Seagate Unveils 2.5-inch Hard Drive

webmaster — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 10:48:01 +0000

Seagate Technology has launched the Momentus Thin drive, 2.5-inch hard disk drive for ultra-portable and entry-level laptops, high-end netbooks, backup devices and consumer electronics.It is 7mm in height and claims to be 25 percent slimmer than traditional laptop hard drives. This thin drive gives original equipment manufacturers (OEM) and system integrators significantly lower cost-per-gigabyte storage than solid state and 1.8-inch drives, enabling a new breed of entry-level thin laptops.

The Momentus Thin drive features two capacity points 250GB and 160GB an 8MB cache, a Serial ATA 3Gb/second interface and a 5400RPM spin speed. The drive is scheduled to ship to Seagate s OEM and integrator partners in January 2010.

We contacted Seagate for the pricing but the company refused to disclose it.

www.techtree.com

Facebook Info Exposed On Web With ‘Everyone’ Privacy Setting

webmaster — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 02:06:53 +0000

Thanks to updated privacy settings, Facebook users now have to fear everyone — literally.Starting Wednesday, Facebook users who logged into the site were treated to a prompt requesting that they review and update their privacy settings. Users had choice of sharing their profile and status updates with “friends,” “friends of friends” or “everyone.”

Facebook’s new privacy updates were accomplished via new transition tool, which directed users to update old privacy settings, while offering suggested new settings. Ignoring the prompts automatically defaulted privacy settings to “everyone” mode — meaning that everyone on the Internet could potentially have access to information shared on the site.

Ostensibly, the idea behind the privacy changes was to give users direct control over what information they share and with whom. For example, users may want to post a status update promoting a project or business to their larger Facebook network, but share personal information with a much smaller community. The privacy settings enable users to determine — profile by profile and post by post — which members of their network have access to what.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced last week in a company blog post that the social networking giant was undergoing a privacy policy overhaul, with the elimination of regional networks and revamped user privacy settings. Facebook began implementing sweeping privacy changes at the beginning of 2009, and began beta testing its updated privacy settings in July.

“We’ve worked hard to build controls that we think will be better for you, but we also understand that everyone’s needs are different,” Zuckerberg said in a blog. “We’ll suggest settings for you based on your current level of privacy, but the best way for you to find the right settings is to read through all your options and customize them for yourself. I encourage you to do this and consider who you’re sharing with online.”

However, what wasn’t made immediately clear is what exactly the ‘everyone’ setting means. In actuality, “everyone” could mean the entirety of the Internet. The “everyone’ setting makes users’ Facebook information and possibly status updates fair game for Google and other search engine pages, as well as some third-party Facebook-enhanced apps, which are not subjected to the site’s privacy policy.

Facebook’s privacy redesign was intended to make it more competitive with micro-blogging site Twitter, which touts simplicity and ease of user as major assets. Additionally, Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) recently announced a deal that would funnel some Twitter tweets onto the pages of its new search engine, Bing. Microsoft said that it was also currently negotiating a deal with Facebook that would allow status updates content to be incorporated on its search pages.

Microsoft, however, failed to disclose exactly how Facebook posts and updates were to be incorporated into Bing. While not all Facebook updates will be included, The New York Times reported that Bing would likely only publish updates users choose to make available to the public — which could be a simple as enabling the default “everyone” privacy setting.

By Stefanie Hoffman

www.crn.com

Dragon for iPhone: Texting without typing

webmaster — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:32:45 +0000

There’ve been some dictation apps before, but now Nuance, maker of the world’s most popular desktop dictation software, is invading the App Store with its own.

Dragon Dictation (link opens iTunes), which is based on the desktop Dragon NaturallySpeaking software, lets you do pretty much everything you’d use the iPhone’s keyboard for, but with your voice.

That includes using the iPhone’s clipboard for cutting and pasting, as well as saying your latest Twitter or Facebook update aloud (warning: Saying “Just ate a sandwich LOL roast beef LOL” aloud may frighten those around you). The app’s still pending approval, but it should be out very soon, at which point it’ll be free for a limited time. LOL!

CNET editors’ note: Some people have expressed concern about a passage in the app’s end-user license agreement that states that Nuance “collects and uses: the names of individuals and companies that appear in your address book in order to improve the quality of service.” Nuance responds to the worries here.

by Dan Nosowitz

news.cnet.com

Google Launches Dictionary and Translated Web Search

webmaster — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 14:11:58 +0000

Amid all the hubbub over Google DNS on Thursday, the search giant also released two more helpful tools to help you get a richer search experience and improve your language skills. Google launched its dictionary project, offering a feature-rich resource that goes beyond simple definitions of words; and its new translated Web search makes it easier to find Web pages written in more than 40 languages.

Dictionary

Google dictionary puts a full-service resource right at your fingertips that can be accessed through Google’s Dictionary page or through a regular Web search. To access words through regular search, click on the “definitions” link on the top right of your results page next to where it says how many results Google has returned for your query (click to enlarge the screen cap). Google dictionary isn’t just for English. The project contains 27 other languages, including the major Western European languages, Chinese (simplified and traditional), Korean, Arabic, Hebrew, and many more. Notable languages currently missing from the project include Japanese and Persian. Google Dictionary also has an English-to-foreign language component, allowing you to translate single words from English into a foreign language or vice versa. This is similar to what you can do in Google Translate.Rich Definitions Page

Google’s word definitions page is full of useful information including an International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) pronunciation guide, synonyms, standard definitions, and usage examples. You can also find external links to Princeton University, Wikipedia, and elsewhere to see to further definitions and usages of the word in question; however, it should be noted this collection of aggregated links on Google’s dictionary page has been around for some time, according to The Los Angeles Times.

If the word you’re searching for is found in another language, Google provides a link to that dictionary as well, and particularly difficult or unusual words include an audio file to let you hear how the word is pronounced. Try searching in English for words such as schadenfreude or Zoroastrianism to see this in action. Some words may also trigger image results; search for winceyette to see an example of this. You can also bookmark particular words for easier access at another time.From what I can tell, Google’s dictionary project has not been merged with the spell check on Google Docs.

TIP: Google’s dictionary is very comprehensive, so for all you juveniles out there: Yes, you can find your favorite dirty words and their definitions in Google Dictionary. And no, these words don’t have pronunciation sound files.

Translated Search

Google has added a feature to its search options panel that allows you to search in English across Web sites in other languages. Google has had a similar feature for some time that allows you to automatically translate foreign language Web sites appearing in Google’s regular search results. But this newest feature searches only foreign language Web sites.

To activate the feature, choose a search term like “Beethoven” and then click on “Show Options” on the top left of the results page. Then click on “Translated Search” at the bottom of the options panel on the left side. (Click on the screen cap for a closer look.)Once you’ve got your translated search, a box at the top of the results page tells you what language the results are being translated into and what language the results are being translated from. You have the option to add other languages to expand your search; Google supports 42 choices.

TIP: If you installed the javascript uncovered by Gizmodo that gives you the rumored visual revamp of Google, you won’t be able to access translated search or Google Dictionary from the search results page. To get this functionality you either have to delete your Google cookie or use another Web browser.

www.pcworld.com