The NSA developed in 2008 a software program for iPhones that can selectively and stealthily deliver data from iPhones to the NSA. The program is called DROPOUTJEEP. News of the malware is the latest to come out of the ongoing Snowden document media bonanza.
Coinbase has released Coinbase Merchant, a point-of-sale app for accepting payments in Bitcoin. The app functions like a traditional POS app (like Square, for example) except it works for the cryptocurrency of note. The app appeared Sunday in the Google Play Store.
Recently it came to blindingly bright light that teens don't like Facebook because that's where their moms and dads are. Surprise! Teens don't like their parents knowing what they're up to. But a study released today shows that parents are hot on the trail and expanding their social networking presence to alternative platforms.
Tesla is arguably the tech world's favorite electric vehicle manufacturer. Its CEO Elon Musk founded Tesla, SpaceX and PayPal. Now an investment trader and analyst is predicting Big Three auto maker General Motors could very well purchase Tesla sometime in 2014. Can a person like Musk let Tesla go at such an early juncture, with so many plans for new Tesla models in the pipeline? We're skeptical.
HTC has lost another major battle in patent court, this time in Germany. Nokia prevailed in a quest to force HTC to stop selling Android-based smartphones in that country, including the company's flagship HTC One. The injunction is expected to be appealed.
One year ago, the first views of Huawei's Ascend Mate appeared in the wild. The phablet debuted a week later at CES 2013. Today images for the Ascend Mate 2 appeared, and the official unveil for the device could be set for CES 2014 next week. All but one of the rumored specs were confirmed with this leak.
Walmart's Vudu online video store has added Intel's "UltraViolet" (UV) content library to its own. The move will expand Vudu viewers' selection to include titles by UV's digital distribution model. The idea here is that it allows for low-cost temporary video access on multiple devices while protecting copyrights for producers.
Google and Audi will together be making some announcements at CES 2014 regarding their future collaborative efforts. Chief among them: an Android-based dashboard system. In essence, Audi owners will be able to access relevant Android apps through the information and entertainment system in the car.
The Nintendo eShop has been drifting in and out of service since sometime on Christmas Day, Kotaku reports, but it's finally back online as of earlier this afternoon. The eShop outages were due to a somewhat predictably large volume of traffic on the biggest gift receiving day of the year. The traffic jam was exacerbated by the creation of new Nintendo Network accounts and conversions from 3DS accounts.
The ever proliferating Uber "black car" service and other mobile-app-dispatched driver services will have to wait 15 minutes before picking up any customer starting Jan. 2014, a French bill has decreed. The bill was spotted by the French news organization Libération and passed on by way of TechCrunch. The decree is intended to preserve the state-regulated taxi industry.
LG is expanding the "Knock" feature to its entire ecosystem of smartphones and tablets, the company announced today. The feature lets users tap the screen twice as an alternative way to turn on the device, rather than reaching around back for the power button. The LG Optimus Series II is next in line to receive the upgrade.
Samsung this weekend teased an upcoming announcement about its Exynos processor ecosystem. The company will formally deliver the announcement on Jan. 7, 2014 at CES. Details are scant at best, but all indications point either to implementation of heterogeneous multi-processing (HMP) in its Exynos 5 Octa line of systems-on-chips (SoCs), or an all-new Exynos 6 Octa with HMP. The tease could also indicate a long-rumored 64-bit Exynos.