INTERNET PARANOIACS DRAWN to Bitcoin have long indulged fantasies of American spies subverting the booming, controversial digital currency. Increasingly popular among get-rich-quick speculators, Bitcoin started out as a high-minded project to make financial transactions public and mathematically verifiable — while also offering discretion. Governments, with a vested interest in controlling how money moves, would, some of Bitcoin’s fierce advocates believed, naturally try and thwart the coming techno-libertarian financial order.

It turns out the conspiracy theorists were onto something. Classified documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden show that the National Security Agency indeed worked urgently to target Bitcoin users around the world — and wielded at least one mysterious source of information to “help track down senders and receivers of Bitcoins,” according to a top-secret passage in an internal NSA report dating to March 2013. The data source appears to have leveraged the NSA’s ability to harvest and analyze raw, global internet traffic while also exploiting an unnamed software program that purported to offer anonymity to users, according to other documents.

Although the agency was interested in surveilling some competing cryptocurrencies, “Bitcoin is #1 priority,” a March 15, 2013 internal NSA report stated.

The documents indicate that “tracking down” Bitcoin users went well beyond closely examining Bitcoin’s public transaction ledger, known as the Blockchain, where users are typically referred to through anonymous identifiers; the tracking may also have involved gathering intimate details of these users’ computers. The NSA collected some Bitcoin users’ password information, internet activity, and a type of unique device identification number known as a MAC address, a March 29, 2013 NSA memo suggested. In the same document, analysts also discussed tracking internet users’ internet addresses, network ports, and timestamps to identify “BITCOIN Targets.”

The agency appears to have wanted even more data: The March 29 memo raised the question of whether the data source validated its users, and suggested that the agency retained Bitcoin information in a file named “Provider user full.csv.” It also suggested powerful search capabilities against Bitcoin targets, hinting that the NSA may have been using its XKeyScore searching system, where the Bitcoin information and wide range of other NSA data was cataloged, to enhance its information on Bitcoin users. An NSA reference document indicated that the data source provided “user data such as billing information and Internet Protocol addresses.” With this sort of information in hand, putting a name to a given Bitcoin user would be easy.

The NSA’s budding Bitcoin spy operation looks to have been enabled by its unparalleled ability to siphon traffic from the physical cable connections that form the internet and ferry its traffic around the planet. As of 2013, the NSA’s Bitcoin tracking was achieved through program code-named OAKSTAR, a collection of covert corporate partnerships enabling the agency to monitor communications, including by harvesting internet data as it traveled along fiber optic cables that undergird the internet.

Specifically, the NSA targeted Bitcoin through MONKEYROCKET, a sub-program of OAKSTAR, which tapped network equipment to gather data from the Middle East, Europe, South America, and Asia, according to classified descriptions. As of spring 2013, MONKEYROCKET was “the sole source of SIGDEV for the BITCOIN Targets,” the March 29, 2013 NSA report stated, using the term for signals intelligence development, “SIGDEV,” to indicate the agency had no other way to surveil Bitcoin users. The data obtained through MONKEYROCKET is described in the documents as “full take” surveillance, meaning the entirety of data passing through a network was examined and at least some entire data sessions were stored for later analysis.

At the same time, MONKEYROCKET is also described in the documents as a “non-Western Internet anonymization service” with a “significant user base” in Iran and China, with the program brought online in summer 2012. It is unclear what exactly this product was, but it would appear that it was promoted on the internet under false pretenses: The NSA notes that part of its “long-term strategy” for MONKEYROCKET was to “attract targets engaged in terrorism, [including] Al Qaida” toward using this “browsing product,” which “the NSA can then exploit.” The scope of the targeting would then expand beyond terrorists. Whatever this piece of software was, it functioned a privacy bait and switch, tricking Bitcoin users into using a tool they thought would provide anonymity online but was actually funneling data directly to the NSA.

The hypothesis that the NSA would “launch an entire operation overseas under false pretenses” just to track targets is “pernicious,” said Matthew Green, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University Information Security Institute. Such a practice could spread distrust of privacy software in general, particularly in areas like Iran where such tools are desperately needed by dissidents. This “feeds a narrative that the U.S. is untrustworthy,” said Green. “That worries me.”

The NSA declined to comment for this article. The Bitcoin Foundation, a nonprofit advocacy organization, could not immediately comment.

The largest search engine company, Google is now in a full Desi mode. Google has announced that it will be providing the Google Assistant in Hindi. The latest Google Assistant update will be available for version 6.0(Marshmallow) and above. Also, it will soon be available for Android 5.0(Lollipop), Android Oreo and iPhone as well. In 2017, Google launched the Assistant in Hindi the instant-messaging platform Allo.



Google Assistance was basically made to assist you in your daily life like it tells you about the day, show the fastest route to reach your destination, set your alarm, etc.



Giving Statement on this, Purvi Shah, Technical Program Manager, Assistant said that The Google Assistant is truly Indian, it's your helpful dost that speaks our language and understands the things to care about, from finding biryani recipes to lastest cricket score, or finding directions to the nearest ATM. In order to make it even more useful to Indians over time, developers and businesses can now build actions for the Hindi Assistant through the developer platform Actions on Google. Once an action is built, you can just say "OK Google, talk to" and access the service or content straight through your Google Assistant.



To try the new Google Assistant user can update the Google search engine from play store and then go to the setting of Google search engine, and the language from English to Hindi.



Google's rival, iPhone smartphone producer Apple co. has also made an intelligent- Assistance, Siri. Which works on iPhone 4S and above models.

Researchers found critical vulnerabilities in three popular VPN services that could leak users' real IP addresses and other sensitive data.
VPN, or Virtual Private Network, is a great way to protect your daily online activities that work by encrypting your data and boosting security, as well as useful to obscure your actual IP address.
While some choose VPN services for online anonymity and data security, one major reason many people use VPN is to hide their real IP addresses to bypass online censorship and access websites that are blocked by their ISPs.


But what if when the VPN you thought is protecting your privacy is actually leaking your sensitive data and real location?
A team of three ethical hackers hired by privacy advocate firm VPN Mentor revealed that three popular VPN service providers—HotSpot Shield, PureVPN, and Zenmate—with millions of customers worldwide were found vulnerable to flaws that could compromise user's privacy.
The team includes application security researcher Paulos Yibelo, an ethical hacker known by his alias 'File Descriptor' and works for Cure53, and whereas, the identity of third one has not been revealed on demand.
PureVPN is the same company who lied to have a 'no log' policy, but a few months ago helped the FBI with logs that lead to the arrest of a Massachusetts man in a cyberstalking case.
After a series of privacy tests on the three VPN services, the team found that all three VPN services are leaking their users' real IP addresses, which can be used to identify individual users and their actual location.
Concerning consequences for end users, VPN Mentor explains that the vulnerabilities could "allow governments, hostile organizations [sic], or individuals to identify the actual IP address of a user, even with the use of the VPNs."
The issues in ZenMate and PureVPN have not been disclosed since they haven't yet patched, while VPN Mentor says the issues discovered in ZenMate VPN were less severe than HotSpot Shield and PureVPN.



The team found three separate vulnerabilities in AnchorFree's HotSpot Shield, which have been fixed by the company. Here's the list:

• Hijack all traffic (CVE-2018-7879) — This vulnerability resided in Hotspot Shield’s Chrome extension and could have allowed remote hackers to hijack and redirect victim's web traffic to a malicious site.
• DNS leak (CVE-2018-7878) — DNS leak flaw in Hotspot Shield exposed users' original IP address to the DNS server, allowing ISPs to monitor and record their online activities.
• Real IP Address leak (CVE-2018-7880) — This flaw poses a privacy threat to users since hackers can track user's real location and the ISP. the issue occurred because the extension had a loose whitelist for "direct connection." Researchers found that any domain with localhost, e.g., localhost.foo.bar.com, and 'type=a1fproxyspeedtest' in the URL bypass the proxy and leaks real IP address.

The researchers also reported similar vulnerabilities in the Chrome plugins of Zenmate and PureVPN, but for now, the details of the bugs are being kept under wraps since both the manufacturers have not yet fixed them.
Researchers believe that most other VPN services also suffer from similar issues.

Twitter hunting jihadists accounts: They have been closed over 125,000 online profiles with “terrorist content”

Microblogging platform, Twitter, has begun using antispam technology to detect accounts that promote terrorism, suspending in recent months, 125,000 online profiles with Islamist character,  informs  The New York Times. The Twitter company has launched this campaign to urge of Administration of Washington, who asked online social networks to intensify actions to combat terrorist messages.

Online social networks have become a recruiting tool and radicalization used by groups such as  Islamic State terrorist organization. Twitter, based in San Francisco American city, announced additional staff specialized in the detection of terrorist content to reduce “significant” reaction time. Twitter experts use technology similar to anti-spam to detect and suspend accounts that promote terrorism.

Barack Obama administration welcomed the microblogging platform announcement.
“We committed to take all possible measures to block terrorist activities, including in cyberspace; welcome the measures taken by the private partners in this field”, has sent the White House.

Last year, HTC launched a flagship high-end smartphone that appeared to be worth the money. The reviews were generally positive, especially when it came time to point out how eye-catching the handset was thanks to those striking color choices. But, as has been the case with a lot of HTC-branded smartphones, the U11 faded out of the limelight pretty quickly.

Here one day, gone the next.

This happens to a lot of phones, of course. A lot of phones see the light of day every year, and there's only so much room in the news cycle for so many. Samsung's Galaxy S9 will rake in most of the attention throughout the beginning of this year, but even it, too, will eventually just slip out of the news cycle.

Except when it comes to comparisons. The Galaxy S9 is one of those smartphones that is so good that it will inevitably be compared to all future handsets launched this year, both from Android manufacturers and the inevitable iPhone X successor that arrives later this year.

But, just like last year, and the year before that, HTC is going to try and win over a few new potential customers, and hopefully keep the loyalists around for another extended stretch of time. That handset looks to be the U12+, which was leaked out not too long ago. It has all of the specifications that we'd expect in 2018 from a high-end flagship, including the powerful processor, the big display and minimal bezels, and more cameras than we probably need.

The image that leaked out recently shows off the back and front of the rumored handset, but the overall quality of the image isn't great. We can see all of the things mentioned above: Two cameras on the back, the fingerprint sensor, the pair of cameras on the front, and the minimized bezels. But the handset itself isn't that appealing to me. Especially that camera system on the back. I'm not a fan of that aesthetic at all. The silver stands out, and not in a good way.

But, like I said the quality of the image isn't great and maybe whatever color options HTC has in store for us this year can make that silver pop-out less unappealing.

The leak of the U12+'s specs and design got me wondering early this morning if this is going to be the handset that catapults HTC to the top of the heap again. There is a lot of competition out there, and HTC has a hard road ahead of it. And now I'm wondering what, exactly, HTC might be able to do to sway you over to their brand this year.

What, if anything, do you think HTC could do in 2018 --whether with their first high-end flagship phone of the year or some other device later on-- to convince you to either switch to an HTC smartphone, or stick with them for a little longer? Or have you completely moved on from the HTC brand? 

Genius British physicist Stephen Hawking who overcame a crippling muscular disease to bring the most complex scientific ideas to the public died Tuesday, his family said.

He was 76.

“Professor Hawking died peacefully at his home in Cambridge,” said a statement released by the family.

The astrophysicist was often compared to Albert Einstein, not only for the field of science that he chose to pursue, but also the breakthrough theories that he presented.

His international bestselling book “A Brief History of Time,” helped illuminate the most complex theories on the origin of the universe, the relationship of space and time, gravity and black holes.



“We are deeply saddened that our beloved father passed away today. He was a great scientist and an extraordinary man whose work and legacy will live on for many years. His courage and persistence with his brilliance and humor inspired people across the world. He once said, ‘It would not be much of a universe if it wasn’t home to the people you love.’ We will miss him forever,” his family said.

The Cambridge University professor tapped into a need to understand the universe.

Professor Stephen Toope, the Vice-Chancellor of the elite Cambridge school where Hawking started his doctorate, paid tribute to the acclaimed academic.

Microsoft has confirmed that the company is planning to convert Windows 10 S from a dedicated operating system to a special "S Mode" that will be available in all versions of Windows.
Windows 10 S, a new operating system designed for simplicity, security, and speed, was released by Microsoft last year. It locks a computer down to run applications only downloaded from official Windows Store, but the slimmed-down and restricted flavor of Windows did not exactly turn out to be a success.
Therefore, the company has now decided Windows 10 S be offered as an optional mode rather than a dedicated operating system.

Windows 10 S was developed to simplify administration for school or business sysadmins that want the 'low-hassle' guaranteed performance version. It has been designed to deliver predictable performance and quality through Microsoft-verified apps via the Microsoft Store.
However, in a blog post published Wednesday, the corporate VP of Microsoft's operating systems group, Joe Belfiore admitted that the naming for Windows 10 S "was a bit confusing for both customers and partners."
Microsoft, therefore, decided that the original version of Windows 10 S would disappear and become an S Mode in Windows.

"Starting with the next update to Windows 10, coming soon, customers can choose to buy a new Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro PC with S mode enabled, and commercial customers will be able to deploy Windows 10 Enterprise with S mode enabled," Belfiore said.


No user, be it a Windows 10 Home, Enterprise, and Pro customer, has to pay anything to disable the S Mode, as Belfiore wrote that "if a customer does want to switch out of S mode, they will be able to do so at no charge, regardless of edition."


"We hope this new approach will simplify and make it possible for more customers to start using Windows in S mode: a familiar, productive Windows experience that is streamlined for security and performance across all our editions," Belfiore said.


S Mode is expected to with the next major Windows 10 update, thought to be called the Spring Creators Update, likely to arrive next month, and it is now up to PC makers to choose whether to enable the new S Mode or not.

Memcached reflections that recently fueled two most largest amplification DDoS attacks in the history have also helped other cybercriminals launch nearly 15,000 cyber attacks against 7,131 unique targets in last ten days, a new report revealed.
Chinese Qihoo 360's Netlab, whose global DDoS monitoring service 'DDosMon' initially spotted the Memcached-based DDoS attacks, has published a blog post detailing some new statistics about the victims and sources of these attacks.
The list of famous online services and websites which were hit by massive DDoS attacks since 24th February includes Google, Amazon, QQ.com, 360.com, PlayStation, OVH Hosting, VirusTotal, Comodo, GitHub (1.35 Tbps attack), Royal Bank, Minecraft and RockStar games, Avast, Kaspersky, PornHub, Epoch Times newspaper, and Pinterest.


Overall, the victims are mainly based in the United States, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Brazil, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and the Netherlands.





According to Netlab researchers, the frequency of attacks since 24th February has increased dramatically, as listed below:

• Before 24th February, the day when Memcached-based DDoS attacks were first spotted, the daily average was less than 50 attacks.
• Between 24th and 28th February, when Memcached as a new amplification attack vector was not publicly disclosed and known to a small group of people, the attacks raised to an average of 372 attacks per day.
• Soon after the first public report came on 27th February, between 1st and 8th March, the total number of attacks jumped to 13,027, with an average of 1,628 DDoS attack events per day.

The maximum number of active vulnerable Memcached servers at a time that participated in the DRDoS attacks was 20,612.
I don't want to exaggerate this but expect hundreds of thousands of Memcached-based DDoS attacks in coming days, as hackers and researchers have now released multiple easy-to-execute exploits that could allow anyone to launch Memcached amplification attacks.
However, researchers have also discovered a 'kill-switch' technique that could help victims mitigate Memcached DDoS attacks efficiently.
Despite multiple warnings, over 12,000 vulnerable Memcached servers with UDP support enabled are still exposed on the Internet, which could fuel more cyber attacks.
Therefore, server administrators are strongly advised to install the latest Memcached 1.5.6 version which disables UDP protocol by default to prevent amplification/reflection DDoS attacks.

Apple’s iPhone X might be the most expensive smartphone on the planet, but it’s not immune from problems…
Apple’s iPhone X costs A LOT of money. You’ll need at least $1000/£1000 to get yourself one – and don’t expect prices to change much in 2018 when the iPhone XI lands. Nope. Thousand dollar iPhones are here to stay, for better or worse.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that a phone this expensive should work perfectly. But as is often the case with technology, things don’t always pan out as you’d expect. And Apple’s iPhone X is no exception. So before you drop a big ‘ol pile of money on this phone, you might want to take a look at some of the documented issues that affect it.

Please note: not all of these issues (or even most of them) affect the majority of iPhone X handsets in circulation. Apple is great at fixing software issues with updates and has even been known to take care of hardware issues without too much fuss as well. All this article is designed to do is detail some of the reported issues surrounding Apple’s iPhone X.

A lot of reviews for a handset will glaze over problems, as most don’t turn up until after a few months of usage. Most reviewers play with a phone for a week and then write a review based on that, which is fine. But it does mean things get missed (it’s why we ALWAYS update our reviews).

iPhone X Problems – Things To Watch Out For

iPhone X Problems – Hair Pulling

Multiple people have been complaining online – Reddit, for instance – that Apple’s iPhone X likes to pull hair a bit too much. According to the myriad of reports, the iPhone X has a habit of trapping hair (facial and head-stuff) in between its bezels, and this can cause some painful issues when ending a call.

iPhone X Problems – The Display Can Become Unresponsive

Apple’s looking into this issue right now, so expect a fix in the very near future.

iPhone X Problems – Incoming Call Delays

iPhone X Problems – FACE ID Hackability

Apple says FACE ID is super secure. No one can hack it, but you and your beautiful face. However, multiple users (and YouTube people) have proved this is not exactly the case. This goes double if you have a twin or an evil doppelgänger.

Apple has also warned parents not to let their young children use their iPhone X handsets. Why? Because the kid’s face is still developing and could be confused for its parent’s by FACE ID. Hence why I prefer the ol’ fingerprint method.

iPhone X Problems – Battery Life

This one was noted by KYM’s Mike, AKA the only iPhone X user on our team. According to Mike, the iPhone X battery life is OK, but nothing special. He was apparently expecting more in this regard from Apple’s. Furthermore, after using a Pixel 2 XL for a week, Mike was blown away by the difference. The Pixel 2 XL lasts FOREVER were his exact words, I believe.

iPhone X Problems – Buzzing Speaker

Bus w**nkers aside, listening to stuff through your phone’s speakers is often necessary (unless you’re on a bus or public transport), and to do this properly you need decent speakers. The iPhone X has two front-facing stereo speakers. And they tend to get the job done.

But there have been plenty of issues about buzzing from the speakers at certain volume settings, as well as distortion whenever volume exceeds 50%. Apple’s iPhone 8 had a similar issue which was fixed with a software update, so let’s hope Apple can do the same thing for the iPhone X.

iPhone X Problems – Green Line of DEATH!

Some iPhone X users have reported a weird green line appearing on their display. Apple hasn’t officially acknowledged this one just yet, but it’s likely an issue with the OLED panel itself – they can be pretty finicky in this regard on account of their composition.

iPhone X Problems – Some iPhone X Units Are Faster Than Others

a massive deal in its homeland thanks to its range of well-made smartphones which deliver a polished user experience at a low cost.

Times are perhaps changing for the company, however; its Mi Mix and Mi Mix 2 phones are premium propositions and it has been eyeing up a move into western markets for quite some time.

Even so, it hasn't forgotten its budget roots, and with that in mind we're taking a look at the Redmi 5, Xiaomi's attempt to bring 16:9 screens to the masses.

It's available from online resellers such as GearBest for around £130 – making it one of the most attractive low-cost Android phones on the market right now.

WHATSAPP DELETE NEWS UPDATE: NEW ADDITION TO SAVE YOU FROM A LOT OF EMBARRASSMENT SOON

On Wednesday, February 28, 2018, GitHub's code hosting website hit with the largest-ever distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that peaked at record 1.35 Tbps.
Interestingly, attackers did not use any botnet network, instead weaponized misconfigured Memcached servers to amplify the DDoS attack.
Earlier this week we published a report detailing how attackers could abuse Memcached, popular open-source and easily deployable distributed caching system, to launch over 51,000 times powerful DDoS attack than its original strength

Dubbed Memcrashed, the amplification DDoS attack works by sending a forged request to the targeted Memcrashed server on port 11211 using a spoofed IP address that matches the victim's IP.
A few bytes of the request sent to the vulnerable server trigger tens of thousands of times bigger response against the targeted IP address.

"This attack was the largest attack seen to date by Akamai, more than twice the size of the September 2016 attacks that announced the Mirai botnet and possibly the largest DDoS attack publicly disclosed," said Akamai, a cloud computing company that helped Github to survive the attack.
In a post on its engineering blog, Github said, "The attack originated from over a thousand different autonomous systems (ASNs) across tens of thousands of unique endpoints. It was an amplification attack using the Memcached-based approach described above that peaked at 1.35Tbps via 126.9 million packets per second."

Expect More Record-Breaking DDoS Attacks

To prevent Memcached servers from being abused as reflectors, administrators should consider firewalling, blocking or rate-limiting UDP on source port 11211 or completely disable UDP support if not in use.

I love shopping online.

Let’s face it, dragging little kids with you to the store who want to run away and touch everything deflates the fun of shopping in the store.
The convenience of shopping online can’t be beat.
There are plenty of ways to save money while shopping online. I’ve got one more for you to add to your bag of tricks.
It’s called Honey.

What exactly is Honey?
If Ebates, Retail Me Not, and an Amazon deal finder had a baby, it’d be Honey.
Here are all the awesome things the Honey app can do for you:

Automatically search and apply coupon codes

New Nokia 8110 with 4G capabilities

The endurance of Samsung’s 30TB SSD appears just as stellar. It’s got a five-year warranty, rated for one full drive write per day. That means you can replace all 30.72TB of data day-in and day-out for five years straight without expecting a catastrophic drive failure.

Now for the bad news: This monstrous solid-state drive isn’t destined for consumer PCs. The PM1643 is an enterprise drive through and through, kitted with a Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) connection instead of a SATA port for business customers looking to shift away from mechanical hard drives. Prices haven’t been revealed, but expect the cost to match the gargantuan capacity. The 30TB SSD has already started manufacturing with a smaller storage options coming later this year.

Fingers crossed that super-sized SSDs trickle down to the masses sooner rather than later. In the meantime, check out PCWorld’s guide to the best SSDs for no-nonsense buying advice on the greatest consumer storage available, complete with information about what to look for in solid-state drives.

Microsoft and Xiaomi to extend their partnership

.


Statements by both the companies
According to Harry Shun, the executive vice President of Artificial Intelligence and Research Group of Microsoft, Xiaomi is the most innovative companies of China which is growing and becoming popular in the global market. He further expanded his statement as, “Microsoft’s unique strengths and experience in AI, as well as our products like Azure, will enable Xiaomi to develop more cutting-edge technology for everyone around the world.”

In a Press release, Xiaomi also said, “Microsoft’s globally leading technologies in cloud computing and AI.”

As per the estimates of last year, Xiaomi is the fifth largest selling company. It shipped about 92.4 million phones giving a competition to Apple, Samsung and Huawei.

Although, these companies had a partnership earlier, but this one would serve to deliver more benefits. Xiaomi would get more technical benefits and supports from Microsoft if it tries to expand its market all over the world. Microsoft’s AI and cloud service would also expand with a “growing hardware partner”.

In the upcoming time, we can expect more such companies pairing up to bring something better. Yesterday, Tencent and Samsung announced its partnership and stated that their joint investment in AI and games. This partnership was much talked about in CES last month.

iBOOT Source Code News

This software can allow hackers to find security loops on iPhones. The release does not affect or harms any iPhone security immediately but it can be used as a source code or to analyze the source code that Apple uses. “Delete” can be used by hackers to replicate or manipulate the source code of Apple and can be used by hackers to affect any iPhones in future. On Wednesday an unknown user of GitHub posted this source code on the website. The website is popularly known for sharing source code by hackers or software developers. It is still unclear how the iBoot source code leaked but it is potentially the biggest leak in the history of Apple.

iBoot: Statements regarding the incident

A popular writer Levin, who has written a lot of books on iOS and Mac OS says that “it’s a huge issues that the iBoot code got leaked. iBoot is the one of the components that Apple has been holding onto still encrypting its 64 bit image and now its wide open in source code form.”
According to reverse engineer, the code is real and can be useful to the hackers. Reports are saying that iBoot code is from iOS 9 but it doesn’t change the fact that it can’t be used or is harmless. It can be used to find loopholes in Apple security patch. Some reports are saying that Apple still uses the same components in the latest version of iOS.

Anyone can discover issues related to iboot which can be used to create new jailbreaks or new ways to decrypt any iPhone. This “iBoot” system’s details’ are given in this blueprint. Hackers can also use the leaked information to create new malwares or surveillance tool for any victim’s device.

iBoot: Apple’s secrecy

The new Samsung Galaxy S9 and Galaxy S9 Plus smartphones will be made official at Mobile World Congress this Sunday and now the Galaxy S9 has been leaked again.

These new photos of the Galaxy S9 have a ‘Secured by Knox’ wording on the handset when it is booting up, it is not clear as yet on whether the new flagships will get additional Knox features over normal Galaxy devices.

We already know what the new Galaxy S9 and S9 will come with a similar design and similar display sizes to the S8 and S8 Plus. Processing will differ by region, a Snapdragon 845 for the US and some other countries and a Samsung Exynos 9810 for some other countries.

The Samsung Galaxy S9 is said to come with 4GB of RAM and the S9 Plus 6GB of RAM, storage will apparently start at 64GB and may go all the way up to 512GB. Both handsets will use Samsung's new flagship mobile camera. The Galaxy S9 will feature a single camera and the S9 Plus a dual lens camera.

After Google announced earlier this month that it was going to wrap Nest back into Google’s hardware operation, everyone figured we’d see a bit more overlap between the two. Sure enough, just two weeks later: the Nest Cam IQ Indoor is getting support for Google Assistant.

Nest says the app update that lets users toggle Google Assistant functionality should hit sometime today. The Nest Cam IQ already has a microphone and speaker built-in for two-way communications, so this just repurposes that existing hardware.

Once you’ve turned on the functionality, Google Assistant on the Cam IQ should work the same as it does on any Google Home device (minus a few things that would generally require a bigger speaker, like playing music, making phone calls, or listening to the news) — just say “OK Google” followed by your question.
It sounds like this functionality is only coming to the Cam IQ Indoor for now — so don’t try barking commands at the outdoor Cam or your old Dropcams just yet.

Remember last year, when “smart” ballet slippers pirouetted into our hearts (and headlines)? Well, now a high-tech pair of smart high-heels is strutting onto the wearable fashion scene and, Toto, we’re not in blandsville anymore.

They’re called Volvorii Timeless smart shoes and what’s so special about them is that they change color in the click of a smartphone app (iOS and Android versions to come). Hello, instant customization gratification. Not sure which heels to wear with that little black dress? Need to morph from business casual to nightclub slick, but no time to shift shoes? No stress. Leave it to the Internet of Stilettos.

View image on Twitter
Created by a seven-person Lithuanian startup called iShüu Tech, and originally the brainchild of display technology research scientist Wallen Mphepö, these high-tech pumps are digital chameleons for your fancy feet. They’re made of leather and rubber and outfitted with the hidden circuit board, Bluetooth, and battery components. And, here’s the kicker, they’re pimped out with electronic (e-ink) “paper” that you control with a companion app, altering the look of the flexible digital panel that spans from the top of the toes on up the sides of the pumps.
Depending on what your outfit calls for, or your mood, you can switch the Volvorii’s smart display panel from black to white to a chic Louis Vuitton-inspired black and white pattern. Its ambitious makers, who think they “just might be on the verge of creating a new micro industry for the world,” plan to add more cool pattern choices in the future.
and 4.5 inches. The battery that powers the display recharges via an included USB wireless charger and takes about two hours to fully juice from zero.