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BetaNews.Com (12 non lus)

Social network Facegloria bans swearing, gay content, and sin

Publié: juillet 6, 2015, 6:57pm CEST par Mark Wilson

Need a social network to connect with friends and likeminded individuals? Take your pick; there are dozens to choose from. Facebook remains by far the most popular and, as it is used by real people, it is filled with everything that makes up life -- the good and the bad. In response, a group of Evangelical Christians in Brazil set up Facegloria with the aim of becoming "morally and technically better than Facebook".

Actually the real aim of the site is to promote Christianity -- to the extent that rather than a Like button, there is an Amen button. Think "godbook", if you will. Of course there are restrictions -- religion isn’t meant to be fun, you know. On the list of banned content is violence and pornography, swearing (there are literally hundreds of banned words), anything that violates "biblical principles", and depicting or referring to homosexual activity.

Clearly this is a social network with a particular market in mind, and it has already attracted more than 100,000 users. For now Facegloria is only available in Portuguese, but there are plans to expand into other languages. Speaking to AFP, web designer Atilla Barros said: "On Facebook you see a lot of violence and pornography. That's why we thought of creating a network where we could talk about God, love and to spread his word".

The network is policed by a team of 20 volunteers, on the lookout for any content that could damage the fabric of society. The aim is to attain 10 million users in the next two years, with a boost in numbers expected from an upcoming mobile app.

Just like Facebook, anyone is free to sign up for Facegloria. But if you do, you had better be on your best, most biblical behavior, or you may find that your content is censored, or even that your account is shut down. And if you happen to be a gay Evangelical Christian, you might be best not shouting about it on Facegloria -- save that for Facebook, yeah?

Photo credit: CREATISTA / Shutterstock
Samsung launches 2TB 850 PRO and EVO SSDs

Publié: juillet 6, 2015, 6:53pm CEST par Brian Fagioli

Solid state drives are the bee's knees as far as I am concerned -- the best upgrade any PC user can make. Even as prices come down, however, there is still a big issue -- limited capacities. Understandably, a user might be hesitant to replace a 1 or 2TB hard drive with a much smaller SSD.

Well, today this changes. Samsung -- a very reputable company -- launches the massive 2TB 850 PRO and EVO SSDs. While this is certainly reason for celebration (and drooling), the price tags may shock consumers.

"The new 2TB 850 SSD PRO and EVO drives remain in the same 7-millimeter, 2.5-inch aluminum case as their predecessors did. Equipped with Samsung’s advanced chip solutions, including 128 individual Samsung 32-layer 128Gb 3D V-NAND flash chips, an upgraded high-performance MHX controller that supports 2TB capacity, and four 20nm-class process technology-based 4Gb LPDDR3 DRAM chips, the 2TB 850 family provides industry-leading performance and power efficiency", says Samsung.

Un-Soo Kim, Senior Vice President of Branded Product Marketing, Memory Business at Samsung Electronics says "Samsung experienced a surge in demand for 500 gigabyte (GB) and higher capacity SSDs with the introduction of our V-NAND SSDs. The release of the 2TB SSD is a strong driver into the era of multi-terabyte SSD solutions. We will continue to expand our ultra-high performance and large density SSD product portfolio and provide a new computing experience to users around the globe".

Holy macaroni, this has me so excited. Unfortunately, as stated earlier, the prices are a bit shocking. The 2TB PRO will sell for $999, while the EVO will be a more "afforable" $799. This makes them unobtainable for many -- we can dream though, right?

Clearly, these are early adopter prices; most consumers will want to wait for price drops. Heck, many consumers spend far less than that on their entire computer!

Are you excited for these massive SSDs? Tell me in the comments.
Amazon announces Prime Day, claims more sales than Black Friday

Publié: juillet 6, 2015, 6:37pm CEST par Alan Buckingham

Think you got some good deals and a lot to choose from on Black Friday or Cyber Monday? Amazon now wishes to top that with an even better event -- Prime Day. The retailer is looking to roll out deals to its most valued customers, those who subscribe to Prime for the good deals, free shipping, and more.

The deal is in celebration of Amazon's 20th birthday, which occurs next week. The sales will be available to customers in the US, UK, Spain, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, Canada and Austria.

"Prime Day is a one-day only event filled with more deals than Black Friday, exclusively for Prime members around the globe. Members tell us every day how much they love Prime and we will keep making it better", says Greg Greeley, Vice President of Amazon Prime. "If you’re not already a Prime member, you’ll want to join so you don’t miss out on one of the biggest deals extravaganzas in the world".

The big day is slated to take place next week, on Wednesday, July 15th. Not all deals will be immediate, they will start at midnight and update every few minutes. Categories will be spread out across all areas, including "electronics, toys, movies, clothing, patio, lawn and garden, sports and outdoor items and more", Amazon claims.
Report suggests Samsung is more reputable than Google, Microsoft and Apple

Publié: juillet 6, 2015, 6:01pm CEST par Brian Fagioli

A company's reputation can make or break it. No matter how good the product, a poor perception of the brand can negatively impact it. Sony, for example, is still recovering from its numerous blunders, such as installing rootkits on Windows machines and having its PlayStation network hacked. The company was not particularly open about both situations at first, leading many people -- myself included -- to be hesitant to trust it.

Samsung, however, seems to be the darling of the tech sector lately. Its smartphones and tablets are wildly popular, despite pundits constantly looking for it to fail. Guess what? According to a new study, the company is more reputable than Google, Microsoft and Apple. The study looked at "social responsibility, innovation, product and services excellence, and creating a great workplace environment".

"The Reputation Institute's RepTrak model is the gold standard for reputation measurement, providing a one-of-a-kind measurement of how the public views the world's best-known companies. The study examines perceptions of companies by the US general public based on over 50,000 interviews. The RepTrak database is normative, examining 15 stakeholder groups in more than 25 industries and more than 50 countries for more than 7,000 companies", says Samsung.

Brad Hecht, chief research officer at Reputation Institute explains, "technology companies with strong reputations recognize that their reputations are dependent on more than just the products and services they provide. The second most important driver of reputation in the technology industry is governance, or whether a company is responsibly run, fair and transparent".

Believe it or not, Apple ranks number 21. This was initially very surprising to me, as Apple fans seem to blindly trust the company. With that said, the majority of consumers do not select its products -- Android trumps iOS in smartphone market share, while Windows beats OS X on the desktop. Maybe the Tim Cook-led company should focus on its reputation as a way to increase market share.

Rounding out 11-25 are the following companies.

11 salesforce.com 73.02
12 Xerox 72.87
13 Dell 72.69
14 Siemens 72.23
15 Cisco Systems 72.21
16 Vmware 71.88
17 Seagate Technology 71.84
18 Intuit 71.81
19 Oracle 71.81
20 IBM 71.62
21 Apple 71.51
22 Lenovo Group 70.37
23 LG Corporation 70.20
24 Polycom 70.04
25 Avaya 69.82

Do you agree with the list? Tell me in the comments.

Photo credit: Anton Watman / Shutterstock.com
Laptops to slim down with LG's thinner, lighter LCD panels

Publié: juillet 6, 2015, 5:56pm CEST par Mark Wilson

With portability in mind, laptop owners generally have two key concerns -- weight and battery life. Today LG announces a new range of thin and light LCD panels that will help to reduce the weight and size of laptops of the future.

The Advanced In-Cell Touch (AIT) panels are slimmer than traditional touch screens as they feature embedded touch sensors rather than a separate panel placed on top of the display. The panels will go into mass production in the second half of this year, bringing technology previously used by LG in smartphone screens to larger devices.

Available in 14- and 15.6-inch versions, the AIT panels are full HD units that are slimmer than their predecessors by a full millimeter. Although the company does not reveal any names, LG says that it has agreements in place with several major notebook manufacturers to supply displays. It is also looking to investigate the release of difference sizes depending on demand.

LG says:

The technology eliminates the space needed for a touch function cover glass, and as a result reduces the panel’s thickness by 1 millimeter (approximately 25 percent) and its weight by 200 grams (approximately 35 percent) compared to a conventional 15.6-inch touch-embedded panel with Full HD resolution. It also offers a brighter and clearer screen picture since there is no light loss or light reflection caused by the cover glass. In addition it features an excellent touch response and precise calibration of the touch point even with water drops on the screen.

Also in the pipelines are new panels specifically for pen input. Looking to the end of 2015 and beginning of 2016, we should start to see the arrival of notebooks that are noticeably thinner.
New cloud solution makes video management easier for developers

Publié: juillet 6, 2015, 4:42pm CEST par Ian Barker

Thanks to the wide availability of fast connections, online video is no longer confined to the likes of YouTube but crops up on all kinds of websites.

This presents a challenge for the developers who need to maintain those sites but a new solution from online image management specialist Cloudinary is set to make life easier.

"Our customers frequently asked us for a video solution that offered the same capabilities as our image solution, a 'Cloudinary for Videos' if you may," says Itai Lahan, CEO and Founder of Cloudinary. "We are excited to unveil our brand new video support, a complete video service that complements our image-management solution perfectly. We hope that with this, we'll manage to save our customers additional valuable R&D, IT and DevOps time that could be re-focused on their core product instead, save IT costs, and greatly improve their users’ online experience".

Cloudinary's new video support provides a technical solution to all aspects of handling videos online, allowing developers to focus on their core product instead of spending time building and supporting in-house video solutions.

Videos can be uploaded at any scale using rich APIs, from a back-end application or directly from a browser or mobile application. They can be managed via an interactive online interface, and automatic transcoding makes it possible to generate HTML5 and mobile friendly videos for optimized viewing on all web browsers and mobile devices.

Videos can be manipulated on-the-fly, in real-time, to fit with graphic design and product requirements. Cloudinary also makes it easy to brand videos, embed ads and captions inside, generate thumbnails and convert to animated GIFs if required. End-user experience is improved too by optimizing videos and streaming them from a global content delivery network.

You can find out more about how Cloudinary can streamline image and video management for developers on the company's website.
First Windows 10 RTM candidate is build 10176

Publié: juillet 6, 2015, 1:45pm CEST par Mark Wilson

With just over three weeks until the launch of Windows 10, preview builds are still popping out left, rights, and center -- some more official than others. Microsoft is beavering away on the final build which will start to roll out on 29 July, and it seems that the RTM version could be signed off as early as this week.

Build tracking site BuildFeed shows that Windows 10 Build 10176 from the th1 branch (a reference to threshold, Windows 10's codename) is now being tested as a release candidate. With a full build string of 10.0.10176.16384.th1.150705-0552, the appearance of this version ties in neatly with a rumor that RTM might be reached this week -- perhaps as early as Thursday.

It has been suggested that the screenshots of the leaked build 10163 contain a hint at when RTM might happen. Wzor's screenshots include an image of the Calendar app which shows 9 July as RTM Sign-Off day. Of course, Wzor is not an official source, but as a leaker has a near-impeccable record of reliability.

With the recent acceleration in build releases, it's possible that Windows 10 Build 10176 will be released to Windows Insiders to try it out for themselves. Even if this does not happen, it's clear that Microsoft is now every much on the home straight, busying itself with the final nips and tucks before the big day rolls around.
Hacking Team hacked as tables turn on notorious surveillance company

Publié: juillet 6, 2015, 12:56pm CEST par Mark Wilson

Italian security and surveillance firm Hacking Team appears to have itself fallen victim to a security breach. Hacking Team produces software which is used by governments around the world as part of their surveillance programs. The company has been criticized for facilitating invasions of privacy, and, over the weekend, its Twitter feed was taken over, resulting in its name and profile picture being changed to read Hacked Team.

But this is far from being the end of the story. Whoever is responsible for the security breach also released a torrent file that provides access to 400GB of company data. Included in the cache are emails, source code, and confidential documents. The files reveal who the company has been dealing with including a number of countries known for their oppressive regimes.

Invoices leaked from the stash of documents via the hacked Twitter account show that Hacking Team provided services for countries such as Egypt and Sudan. This includes providing surveillance equipment as well as software for gaining remote access to computers. We've heard a lot about Hacking Team since the explosion of the NSA surveillance debacle. A secret manual published last year showed just how to use the company's various tools to spy on people, get around encryption.

Working through all of the documents that have been leaked since Sunday's breach, CSO reports that Hacking Team's list of customers includes:

Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, Nigeria, Sudan, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, United States, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mongolia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Australia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Luxemburg, Poland, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Bahrain, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and UAE.

Hacking Team has gained the attention of human rights groups for its apparent willingness to work with countries engaged in human rights abuse, and those looking to spy on journalists, and people opposed to the government.

The attackers have not been afraid to rub a little salt in the wound. As well as the name change to Hacked Team, the security firm's description was also edited to read:

Developing ineffective, easy-to-pwn offensive technology to compromise the operations of the worldwide law enforcement and intelligence communities.

Control of the account has since been regained.

In addition to invoices, the leaked cache of data also reveals many of the passwords used by clients. With examples such as Passw0rd, Pas$w0rd, and Passw0rd!, it seems clear that security is not viewed with as much importance by all.

Hacking Team was very slow to respond to the attack. Eventually, Christian Pozzi from the company took to Twitter to hit out at the perpetrators. He also defended Hacking Team, suggesting that what was being posted by the attackers was not to be believed, and also tried to discourage people from downloading the data but suggesting that the torrent contained a virus. It's not clear how long it will take Hacking Team to regain control of its accounts, but Pozzi insisted that police are currently investigating. His Twitter account has subsequently been taken offline.

With the number of big governments that seem to be customers of Hacking Team, the fallout from this breach could be huge. As one Infosec associated puts it:

Bad day? Could be worse. It's now someone at @hackingteam's job to call up the Russian secret police and inform them there's been a breach

— Liam (@liamosaur) July 6, 2015
Google launches Android One in Pakistan

Publié: juillet 6, 2015, 12:51pm CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

The Android One program targets consumers in emerging markets who are looking for smartphones with an untainted Android experience, devoid of the typical bloatware and customizations that they can expect from major vendors like Samsung. At the same time, Android One is also about offering that vanilla Android experience in an affordable package, so that more consumers can afford to make the switch to smartphones.

Android One launched in India in September of 2014, and has since expanded to include other Asian countries. The latest market to join the program is Pakistan, where QMobile's A1 is now available.

Moments ago, Google announced that the aforementioned Android One device is available through local retail stores, featuring "high-quality hardware" that it tested with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop. Just like other Android One devices, it arrives with the latest version of Android out-of-the-box, and with the promise of fast updates to new releases.

Here are the most-noteworthy specs: 4.5-inch IPS display with FWVGA (854x480) resolution; 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, 1,700 mAh battery; 5 MP main camera; 2 MP secondary camera; 8 GB of internal storage; microSD card slot; dual-SIM; Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n; Bluetooth; FM Radio; GPS; dimensions of 132 x 67.9 x 9.15 mm.

The smartphone's recommended retail price is PKR 11,500, which is about $113. While not the cheapest smartphone around, it does have the advantage of having Google's blessing and proper Android support for some time to come.
Windows 10 build 10163 screenshots leak online

Publié: juillet 6, 2015, 12:18pm CEST par Mihaita Bamburic

With Windows 10 set to debut at the end of the month, Microsoft is busy making the final tweaks to its new operating system before it gets into consumers' hands. Just last week Insiders received three new builds, seemingly close to the finished product. Behind closed doors, Microsoft is actively working on fine-tuning the experience further.

We got word of Windows 10 build 10163 late last week, when its release notes leaked online. There are lots of bug fixes and known issues listed, as one might expect from a non-final release, and no new major features. And now we have some leaked screenshots to go along with the release notes.

The screenshots, which were posted by perennial Windows leaker WZor, show the initial steps of the installation process, the desktop, Start menu, Store, Calendar, Weather, Twitter and Money apps, Update & Security, log in window and lockscreen, as well as other key parts of Windows 10. Hit the link for the whole collection.

Windows 10 build 10163 bears the Microsoft Confidential watermark. Since the release notes and screenshots leaked online, there has been no word from Microsoft that suggests we might see it being released to Insiders any time soon. That said, the company might surprise us.
Vodafone Smart ultra 6 review

Publié: juillet 6, 2015, 9:57am CEST par Ian Barker
Not so very long ago each new mobile phone that launched would be smaller than its predecessor whilst packing in more features. In recent years though we’ve come full circle and phones have started to get bigger again, offering more screen real estate for apps and improved image quality for multimedia use.

Bigger doesn’t necessarily mean more expensive though and the Smart ultra 6 from Vodafone appears to offer a lot of phone -- both physically and technically -- for just £125 on pay-as-you-go. Let’s see how well it delivers.

What You Get

What you receive is a nicely non-flashy package, the box is eco-friendly recycled cardboard and the phone comes with a USB charger cable and mains adaptor and a set of iPod-white earphones. This stripped back approach applies to software too and the phone isn’t overloaded with pre-installed bloatware apps.

Although it carries the Vodafone brand name the Smart ultra is made by Chinese manufacturer ZTE. The first thing that strikes you when you open the box is the size: it’s 154mm long and 77mm wide (about six inches by three), but slim though at under 9mm thick. Even so if you like things snug in the trouser department your friends will notice you’ve upgraded your handset before you take it out of your pocket. In the interest of gender equality, if you favor a smaller handbag you may have to leave some other essentials behind to accommodate the Smart Ultra.

The back cover is plastic but it has a nice semi-matt grey finish and doesn’t really feel cheap, though at the same time doesn’t really have a wow factor. Under the skin it has an eight-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor (four running at 1.5GHz and four at 1GHz), 2GB of RAM, plus a generous 16GB of storage that can be expanded with a microSD card. It runs the latest Android 5.0 Lollipop and it’s 4G capable. There’s a 13-megapixel rear camera and 5-megapixel front, with 4x digital zoom and an LED flash.

It’s the screen that’s the star of the show here though: it’s a 5.5 inch with a 1,920 x 1,080 pixel resolution, and it is impressive. It’s bright with strong colors and there’s no hint of fuzziness in icons and text; video playback is smooth too. The built-in speaker sounds a bit tinny though so you’ll want to use headphones.

In Use

In fact performance is smooth generally with no noticeable lag when loading apps or making entries via the keyboard. The camera is pretty good too, it defaults to Auto mode but there’s a high dynamic range (HDR) option available along with some artistic filters. Exposures aren’t always perfect, tending to look a little washed out in bright conditions but it’s fine for everyday use.

Although there aren’t many apps pre-installed, apart from the standard Android stuff like Gmail and YouTube, you do get Vodafone’s own Smart Tips software. This leads you though some of the phone’s features, useful if you’re an Android virgin. There are a few other Vodafone apps too but not enough to get annoyed about.

The phone charges up from flat in a couple of hours -- it does get quite warm when it’s charging though -- and a full battery will give you around 240 hours of standby and 15 hours of talk on 3G. There’s no user access to the battery so if it ever needs replacing you’ll be sending the phone back.

Conclusion

Priced at £125, or from around £17 a month on contract, you do get a lot of phone for your money here. Yes there are some minor niggles, but if you want a big screen, 4G connectivity and decent performance there’s not currently much else in UK to match the Smart ultra 6 in this price range.

Pros
- Screen quality
- Minimal bloatware
- Good value
Cons
- Tinny speaker
- Variable camera performance
Company Release
Price ITProPortal
Review Company Site

Vodafone £125 7/10

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.
Google discounts Nexus 6

Publié: juillet 6, 2015, 7:37am CEST par Sead Fadilpašić

Google has decided to significantly reduce the price of its Nexus 6 models in the UK. The devices are now available on Google Store for as low as £399.

The 32GB model of the Motorola-made handset comes in at that price, while the 64GB version is down to £479. The devices' initial prices were £479 and £549 respectively.

The Nexus 6 has been given temporary price cuts through various channels before, and the latest reduction is temporary.

The Nexus 6 device is a 159.26 x 82.98 x 10.06 mm Android phone. It has a 6-inch AMOLED display with the resolution of 1440 x 2560. It packs a 2.7GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 quad core processor, and 3GB of RAM.

The battery is 3,220 mAh, and it’s said that it has 24 hours of talk time, and 330 hours of stand-by time. It comes in two variants, the 32GB and the 64GB.

It was released in October 2014, but this April, Google admitted the interest in the brand has "declined" since the release of the Nexus 6 and Nexus 9.

"Other revenues grew 23 percent year-over-year to $1.8 billion (£1.15bn), but were down 2 percent quarter-over-quarter, driven really by year-over-year growth in the Play Store, offset by decline in Nexus, and the currency fluctuations", said Google in a statement back then. "Year-over-year it hasn’t been as strong given the strength of the Nexus 7 last year".

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

Photo Credit: Joe Wilcox