Important announcements
Facebook quietly signs EU’s Privacy Shield data treaty
Social networking giant Facebook has agreed to adopt a new European Union (EU) data accord that allows personal information to be transferred to the US, potentially sparking yet another privacy row, the media reported. Privacy Shield, a replacement deal that was designed to provide extra safeguards for Europeans, came into force in July. Google and Microsoft have already adopted the treaty. Facebook’s adoption of the treaty is significant because the prior US-EU agreement, Safe Harbour which was abolished by the European Court of Justice as a direct result of legal action against the social network by privacy campaigners. However, it is likely to lead to further scrutiny of the Privacy Shield deal from Facebook’s critics, the report stated.
You can read more here.
Razer acquires audiovisual icon THX as it explores growth beyond the games industry
Razer, the company that develops hardware and services for gamers and the world of gaming, has made an acquisition to catapult it to more platforms and more people: The company has acquired THX, the legendary audio and video quality assurance company that was originally founded by George Lucas as part of Lucasfilm. THX was started as a special audio division at Lucasfilm when the company was working on Return of the Jedi and Lucas wanted to ensure that the sound in theaters was just as the sound engineers had intended it to be. Fast-forward to today and the company still focuses on HD quality, but now it works in a range of other environments that span both audio and video.
More info can be found here.
Linux users urged to install patch after serious security flaw
There’s a Linux vulnerability in the wild that’s apparently been residing in just about every Linux version for the last nine years, and Linux users will want to install a patch as soon as possible. The exploit is titled CVE-2016-5195, and it’s a privilege-escalation bug as opposed to a code-execution vulnerability. That makes it theoretically less serious, but nevertheless, researchers aren’t taking it lightly. In part, it’s considered a serious threat because it resides in a Linux kernel section that’s used by almost all Linux distributions. And the bug is apparently being actively used by malicious parties in the real world. According to Dan Rosenberg, senior researcher at Azimuth Security, “It’s probably the most serious Linux local privilege escalation ever. The nature of the vulnerability lends itself to extremely reliable exploitation. This vulnerability has been present for nine years, which is an extremely long period of time.”
You can read more here.
Top new products
Looks like BlackBerry has one last Android phone up its sleeve
The phone in question is thought to be codenamed Mercury, and is already expected to come with a physical keyboard and run Android 7.0 Nougat. Now Geekbench results have revealed the phone could also include a Qualcomm octa-core chipset (which could very well be the Snapdragon 625 SoC) running at 2GHz and 3GB of RAM. Rumours suggest Mercury could launch as early as Q1 2017, with a 4.5-inch Full HD display, 32GB internal storage, 18-megapixel and 8-megapixel cameras and a 3,400mAh battery.
You can read more here.
LeEco takes aim at Samsung Gear VR with its own mobile ‘ExploreVR’
At its first major US event, the Chinese tech giant LeEco showed off an entire ecosystem of products: from TVs to phones to cars to bicycles. As part of its ecosystem of connected devices and on demand entertainment, the company also showed off a mobile VR headset it calls ExploreVR. The ExploreVR looks to a Gear VR competitor, complete with a USB C connector that plugs one of the company’s smartphones into the front of the headset. There are a number of sensors built-in, including a gyrometer, accelerometer and magnetometer and a proximity sensor. The device will be be powered by the Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 821 inside LeEco’s new smartphone, the Le Pro 3. For comfort it promises “premium memory foam lining,” that molds to the contours of your head.
More info here.
Kodak announces Ektra, a smartphone for photographers
Kodak Ektra runs on a deca-core MediaTek Helio X20 clocked at 2.3GHz along with 3GB DDR3 RAM. It will sport a 5-inch Full HD display along with the usual connectivity options like 4G-enabled Nano SIM slot, GPS, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, Bluetooth v4.1, 3.5mm audio jack, FM radio, and USB Type-C port. Coming to the main features of the camera-phone, Ektra is equipped with a 21MP Sony Exmor RS sensor on the back. The Exmor RS sensor comes with Phase detection Auto Focus (PDAF), Optical Image Stabilization (OIS), and f/2.0 aperture along with dual-LED flash. The company has also added a 13MP camera module on the front with PDAF and f/2.2 aperture
You can read more here.
Top interesting info
New Android banking malware steals your data with the snap of a selfie
An updated bit of bad software designed to lurk on the Android phones of users and steal their personal data has been uncovered, with this one engaging with the users and asking, very nicely, for credit card details and a selfie. Discovered by the McAfee Labs Mobile Research Team, the latest trojan not only asks for banking details and some second factor data to help access people’s accounts, but also wants a photo of the person under attack, preferably of them holding up their driving license, passport or banking card for verification. So how can you protect yourself against the threat? Well, first of all, you should avoid downloading shady third-party apps from any app store, and you should only be getting your apps from Google Play, as McAfee notes that the malware only seems to be appearing on apps downloaded from those third-party stores.
You can read more here.
Microsoft reaches ‘human parity’ with new speech recognition system
Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence and Research branch have created a speech recognition system that can pick up the words in a conversation as well as most humans can. The record-breaking tech has hit what the team is calling “human parity” – that is, it’s not perfect, but it makes the same or fewer mistakes in transcription than human professionals. The system uses neural networks to process enormous amounts of data and learn to recognize patterns as it is exposed to more information. It’s also an incredibly exciting breakthrough for any speech-to-text software, including virtual assistants, like Microsoft’s own Cortana.
More info are available here.
There’s an inactive one-handed keyboard hidden inside iOS code
The one-handed keyboard mode is activated by an edge swipe on the keys, revealing a sidebar of cut/copy/paste controls and squishing the other keys down to the side. This would make it much easier for the user to stretch their thumb across the entire width of the alphabet keys, improving one-handed use on larger iPhones. Inside iOS code since iOS 8 implies that Apple was testing the feature alongside the development of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which introduced dramatically larger 4.7 inch and 5.5 inch screens to the iPhone lineup back in 2014. Obviously, the feature was not considered that important as it is yet to ship. iOS code includes a lot of disabled work-in-progress stuff but the one-handed keyboard seems to be in an almost final form.
You can read more here.
