Posts Tagged ‘photography’

After a relative lull in activity, it looks as though the Chinese hacking group uncovered in a February security report has resumed its attacks on US targets. According to new information that security firm Mandiant submitted to The New York Times , attacks against identical, but unspecified, targets have been gradually increasing over the past two months, now sitting at 60 to 70 percent of their previous strength. Obama administration officials say that the issue will continue to be revisited until it can convince the Chinese leadership that “there is a real cost to this kind of activity.” In recent months, President Obama’s national security advisor Tom Donilon has talked tough about Chinese cyberattacks on US businesses and… Continue reading…

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Chinese hackers renew cyberattacks on US targets after brief lull

Last September, Google expanded its Street View service to include locations under the ocean , and if you’re curious about just how the company managed, TechCrunch has a great rundown of what goes into capturing all of those cute little sea turtles. As you’d imagine, it all starts with camera-equipped divers, and an average dive covers around two kilometers and captures up to 4,000 images — so far Google has captured more than 150,000 underwater snapshots. That’s all done using a specialized camera that includes a wider-angle lens compared to the typical Street View camera, and it’s outfitted with a tablet to control all of the underwater photo capturing. Currently the service only covers six locations, but expect that to change over… Continue reading…

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Google Street View’s underwater journey

If you’re both a gamer and a self-professed football fan, odds are you’ll be buying Madden this year — just like any other. For those who’ve already committed to purchasing the $99.99 Anniversary Edition of Madden 25 , Amazon is undoubtedly the best spot to place a pre-order. Because in addition to providing bonus in-game content, the online retailer has also partnered up with DirecTV for some exclusive NFL Sunday Ticket offers. Amazon’s edition of Madden will grant new DirecTV customers $10 off their monthly bill for a year, tossing in the NFL Sunday Ticket Max package at no additional cost. Alongside the RedZone channel, Max also gives you full access to live season games on your computer, tablet, or smartphone

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Amazon-exclusive ‘Madden 25 Anniversary Edition’ includes free NFL Sunday Ticket offer

Sometimes it pays to wait before spending your hard-earned cash on the year’s best games. If you haven’t yet played through BioShock Infinite , for example, Amazon just eliminated “price” as a valid reason for your willful ignorance. The heralded first-person shooter from Irrational Games is Amazon’s Deal of the Day across all platforms — though the cost isn’t uniform. Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 owners can grab the title for $39.99. The asking price for either a physical or digital Windows version is $34.99.

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Good Deal: ‘BioShock Infinite’ on sale at Amazon for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC

Earlier this year, Verizon announced some new 3G prepaid plans for $60 and $70 dollars that offered 500MB and 2GB of data, respectively. Now, it looks like the company has silently bumped those allotments up to 2GB and 4GB without touching the price. Android Central reports that the changes go into effect immediately for those with existing plans, but new customers won’t get hold of the new rates until June 6th. It’s a nice bump, but you can probably find lower prices and higher caps elsewhere , although your best option will depend on the coverage in your area

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Verizon extends $60 and $70 prepaid plans to 2GB and 4GB of data

Valve is pushing out another update to Team Fortress 2, its 356th since it first shipped the game as part of The Orange Box in 2007. But there’s something special this time around — the new content, titled Robotic Boogaloo, is the first to be created entirely by fans. Polygon reports that the update will have 57 virtual items, mostly hats (naturally), and include a comic that connects it with the game’s expansive backstory. In a blog post announcing the release, Valve said that just because it’s pushing out community-developed updates doesn’t mean that it will stop producing its own content for the game. “As far as we’re concerned, there’s plenty of room for both to happily co-exist,” says the company.

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Valve announces ‘Robotic Boogaloo,’ the first ‘Team Fortress 2′ update built by the community

An update to the Google Music app broke compatibility with the ill-fated Nexus Q — but it appears Google may have a new media streamer waiting in the wings to replace it. A recent FCC filing provides some sparse details on a mysterious product referenced as the “H840 Device.” Google is mentioned as the product’s manufacturer, and it’s described as a “fixed base station” with 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi. What’s most intriguing, however, is the product’s purpose: one of the documents states plainly that “The device functions as a media player.” Douglas Adams fans are also likely to get a kick out of the device’s model number, as well. It’s listed as the H2G2-42, no doubt a sly wink towards The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy . The Nexus Q had..

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Google’s potential Nexus Q successor revealed in FCC filing

Chinese telecommunications giants ZTE and Huawei are set to face an EU investigation for anti-competitive behavior. Although the pair have both seen moderate success marketing their consumer devices in the region, the investigation is regarding the companies’ infrastructure equipment, which provides the backbone for the industry. In recent years Chinese companies have taken around a quarter of of the EU market, with sales of around €1 billion (roughly $1.3 billion). But according to European Union Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, the success has been due to anti-competitive predatory pricing.

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ZTE and Huawei face EU investigation over predatory pricing

Every time a reality TV star’s mouth is pixelated to obscure a curse, the producers are using a technique pioneered for Yul Brynner’s killer robot in Westworld . John Whitney Jr., who created the effect for director and writer Michael Crichton, wanted to simulate how an android might see the world. To do so, he divided the screen into tiny squares, calculating the average color of each one, and filling them with that color, creating a shifting low-resolution version of normal vision.

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How ‘Westworld’s’ killer android created movie pixelation

It appears that Canada will become the latest country to look into the business practices of search giant Google. The Financial Post reports that Canada’s Competition Bureau — a law-enforcement agency focused on ensuring competitive conditions in the marketplace — has notified Google that it will be investigating the company’s Canadian operations. It’s not clear at this time what the scope of the investigation will be, or what specific Google products and services will be targeted. The investigation will follow a series of other Google investigations, including ones launched by the Federal Trade Commission and EU regulators. Google reached a settlement with the FTC earlier this year; the company offered to make changes to address EU..

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Google’s business practices to be investigated by Canadian Competition Bureau

TechCrunch is reporting that two of the largest players in online food delivery have been talking about joining forces. GrubHub and Seamless, which offer websites and mobile apps that allow users to order food online for delivery to their home or business, are said to be discussing a potential merger. According to the report, no deal has been finalized just yet, thought the talks are characterized as “serious.” While both companies are arguably the two most well-known competitors in their particular arena, that hasn’t stopped a number of other entrants from bringing their own online food-ordering services to market. Merging would allow the two companies to bolster their respective offerings, resulting in an even more entrenched… Continue reading…

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Seamless and GrubHub food delivery services reportedly considering merger

Dell introduced Project Ophelia to the world at CES back in January , and now it’s revealed shipping timeframes for the Android-powered MHL stick. Ophelia will ship in May to developers, with cable providers and telecoms able to buy it in July. A consumer release will follow shortly thereafter. When it does ship, the tiny device (about the same size as a portable USB stick) will convert any HDMI-ready display into an Android computer. Naturally Google Play is built right in, so you’ll have access to your entire library of Android software

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Dell’s Project Ophelia will turn any HDTV into an Android computer this May

After four years in office, FCC Chair Julius Genachowski is stepping down today. Genachowski pioneered an ambitious plan for rural broadband and a shift towards net neutrality, but his leadership was also seen by some as plodding and ineffective. Regardless, in a candid interview with The New Yorker, Genachowski says he remains an optimist, though he acknowledges limits to how far he was able to change national policy during his tenure.

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FCC Chair Julius Genachowski steps down today, but what will he leave behind?

The CW Network is bringing its shows to the Apple TV with a new app, reports Deadline . That makes it the first TV network to make its content directly available to viewers on the set-top box rather than through an intermediary like Netflix or Hulu. The network behind shows like 90210, Gossip Girl, and the Vampire Diaries will be launching the app sometime in the coming weeks, but no exact release date has been given. The network announced its plans at its annual upfront ad sales event. Later, confirming the details to MacRumors , CW stated that the app would be similar to what it offers on Xbox and mobile platforms — programming would be ad-supported (i.e., no cable authentication required), and available a day after airing on TV

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Apple TV to get first network television app with addition of CW

Video game publisher Electronic Arts had already suggested that its upcoming Star Wars games might not be coming to the Nintendo Wii U , but it looks like the situation is more dire than that. EA tells Kotaku that the company is not currently making any games for the Wii U, period. “We have no games in development for the Wii U currently,” spokesman Jeff Brown told the publication.

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Electronic Arts is no longer developing games for Nintendo’s Wii U

The Obama administration is asking for Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) to reintroduce a bill that would give more protections to media organizations, reports The New York Times . Schumer’s 2009 Free Flow of Information Act would prevent the government from forcing compliance with subpoenas until a federal court determines that there’s a good reason to do so, heading off the kind of broad subpoena that the Justice Department used to monitor the personal and private phone lines of 20 AP reporters . The administration has been under fire for its handling of the AP case, with Senator Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) saying that the Obama White House has ” impaired the First Amendment ” during yesterday’s Congressional hearing. The protections in…

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White House calls for reintroduction of shield law to protect journalists and sources

Google CEO Larry Page has finally opened up about a recurring and noticeable health problem — what Google Chairman Eric Schmidt characterized as the loss of Page’s voice last year. In a post on his Google+ page today , Page describes how he first encountered the issue “about 14 years ago,” right around the time that he cofounded Google, when he suffered a cold and then a hoarse voice, from which he says he never fully recovered. As Page writes: “So I went to a doctor and was diagnosed with left vocal cord paralysis. This is a nerve problem that causes your left vocal cord to not move properly.” Continue reading…

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Google CEO Larry Page says his voice problems were caused by vocal cord paralysis

The biggest surprise at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show is about to go on sale. The Nvidia Shield , a five-inch portable Android game console that can also stream PC games from a nearby gaming computer, will cost $349 at Newegg, GameStop, Micro Center, Canada Computers and Nvidia.com when pre-orders begin May 20th. Technically, you can actually pre-order one today if you sign up on Nvidia’s “notify me” webpage — and there’s nothing to keep you from doing that right now. Before you plunk down money on the latest gadget, though, why not read what the fuss is all about?

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Nvidia Shield gaming handheld priced at $349, pre-orders begin on May 20th (preview)

Following Outlook.com’s recent Skype integration , Microsoft is turning its integration focus to Google services today. Google Talk, an instant messaging service for text and audio, is being integrated directly into Outlook.com, Microsoft’s refreshed webmail service. The surprising move comes just days before Google is rumored to be rounding up its Google Talk and Hangouts services into a unified “Babel” service . Google Talk support just ahead of rumored Babel service Microsoft heard from Outlook.com users that they wanted to chat to their contacts using Google Talk, so the company utilized Google’s APIs to build the support.

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Outlook.com gets Google Talk support, rolling out worldwide this week

If you’re looking for screenshots of Atari’s 1976 blockbuster Breakout , you may be in for a surprise today. Typing ” atari breakout ” into Google Image Search will return a fully playable version of the game, where the images are rendered as breakable blocks. The original version of the game was developed by a pre-Apple Steve Wozniak after his friend Steve Jobs promised Atari founder Nolan Bushnell that he could deliver a prototype in just four days. While this Google version may not have quite as storied a history, it stands out as one of the more elaborate Easter eggs we’ve seen from the search giant.

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Play Atari’s classic ‘Breakout’ right inside Google Image Search

A reboot of astrophysicist Carl Sagan’s groundbreaking documentary series Cosmos: A Personal Journey hosted by Neil deGrasse Tyson is finally on its way to television. On Monday, Fox made an official announcement during its advertising upfront presentation at New York’s Beacon Theatre, reports The Los Angeles Times . The series has been in the works for years , and will be making its long-awaited premiere sometime in 2014. Continue reading…

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Neil deGrasse Tyson’s remake of Carl Sagan’s ‘Cosmos’ headed to Fox in 2014

Shane Todd’s parents, Rick and Mary Todd, arriving at the coroner’s public inquest. Photo: Belmont Lay Investigators and friends testified today that Shane Todd, the American engineer who was found hanging in his bathroom in Singapore last year , was depressed and even visited suicide-related websites in the months before his death. It was the first day of testimony in the highly sensitive 12-day coroner’s inquest, which was commissioned after Todd’s parents raised questions about their son’s death. The Todds believe that Shane was murdered , possibly because he facilitated an illegal transfer of military-grade technology from the US to China through his work at the Singaporean research agency Institute of Microelectronics.

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Singapore police present evidence of suicide in controversial death of American engineer

Amazon has just debuted its own virtual currency , Amazon Coins, allowing customers to pay for apps on its Amazon Appstore for Android, as well as some in-app items. Kindle Fire customers in the US are the first to get their hands on Amazon Coins, as the company is giving all of them $5-worth of the currency, or 500 coins. But anyone can head to the Amazon Coins page and purchase Coins for themselves. Continue reading…

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Amazon launches virtual currency Coins

If you’ve never owned a cellphone without a data plan, chances are good that you’ve never heard of Google’s SMS Search — a way to query the search engine by sending a text message, getting results back in the form of text rather than a list of web links. It’s probably just as well, since the company recently decided to close the service, reports TechCrunch . A Google spokesperson provided us with the following statement: Continue reading…

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Google’s SMS Search is the latest legacy service to get the axe

Google Maps is usually for helping you navigate, but a new game based on Street View is about being almost hopelessly lost. GeoGuessr drops you at a random Street View location across the earth, leaving you to move around the map as much as you’d like before ultimately taking a guess at where you’re actually standing. Though you’ll occasionally get lucky and start off right in front of a hotel billboard printed with a city’s name on it, for the most part you’ll be wandering around country roads, scrounging hints off of signs and license plates, and trying to make it back to civilization.

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Helplessness, despair, and Street View come together in ‘GeoGuessr’ Google Maps game