Monthly Archive:: March 2015

While Microsoft has dropped hints that the Internet Explorer brand is going away, the software maker has now confirmed that it will use a new name for its upcoming browser successor, codenamed Project Spartan. Speaking at Microsoft Convergence yesterday, Microsoft's marketing chief Chris Capossela revealed that the company is currently working on a new name and brand. "We're now researching what the new brand, or the new name, for our browser should be in Windows 10," said Capossela. "We'll continue to have Internet Explorer, but we'll also have a new browser called Project Spartan, which is codenamed Project Spartan. We have to name the thing."

Apple Pay itself should, in theory, cut down on fraud because it makes stealing credit card information almost impossible. Each time a transaction takes place, Apple generates the equivalent of a new credit card number so the merchant never actually sees a customer's information.

The vulnerability in Apple Pay is in the way that it - and card issuers - "onboard" new credit cards into the system. Because Apple wanted its system to have the simplicity for which it has become famous and wanted to make the sign-up process "frictionless", the company required little beyond basic credit card information about a user. Nor did it provide much information to the banks, like full phone numbers and addresses, that might help them detect fraud early.

The banks, desperate to become their customers' default card on Apple Pay - most add only one to their iPhones - did little to build their own defenses or to push Apple to provide more detailed information about its customers. Some bank executives acknowledged that they were were so scared of Apple that they didn't speak up. The banks didn't press the company for fear that they would not be included among the initial issuers on Apple Pay.

With no embeddable games, the keyboard relies upon existing iOS and Android apps. Elite bundles a free app that launches with a short soundbite of the Spectrum loading sound and offers a number of free games, including exclusive rights to Chuckie Egg, and access to Sinclair BASIC. Other games can be unlocked via 79p ($1) in-app purchases. During my demo, I led Hen-House Harry through a number of levels and the gameplay was exactly like I remember it, as was the tactile feel of the rubberized keyboard. You don't realize just how much you missed those 8-bit soundtracks and super-simple graphics.

Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney's Steve Jobs documentary, Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine, debuted over the weekend at the South by Southwest (SXSW) film festival in Austin, Texas.

Financed by CNN Films, the 127-minute doc was described by its maker as delivering a "far more complex interpretation" of Jobs than any of the previous movies depicting the life of Apple's iconic co-founder.

But what did the press think? Well, the first reviews are out and, while they're generally strong, they certainly don't describe a documentary that paints Jobs in a favorable light - or one that contains too many revelations that will be new to anyone who read Jobs' maligned 2011 biography by Walter Isaacson.

The Galaxy S6 is set to mount the biggest challenge to Apple's iPhone 6 to date, so it's only natural to want to compare the dimensions and proportions of the two. I found that a strangely difficult task with the press images provided from both manufacturers: Apple still hides the iPhone's camera bulge in profile shots and Samsung's front and back pictures are shot at slightly different sizes. So I have rescaled the press photos in accordance with the official specs, and used The Verge's magical image slider to get an idea of the difference in size.

From complaints about the Intel Core-M processor to the color choices to the decision to use USB-C, it seems that anyone with skin in the Mac game has found something to pick on regarding the new Macbook. I think it's all utter bullshit.

The thing that spec monkeys need to remember is that most people don't care about what they care about. Most people buying new computers aren't interest in how many cores a CPU has or how many GB of RAM or storage it has. Very few of the people I sell computers to have more than a passing interest. They want to know what the computer can do. What problems it solves for them.

As developers migrated away from Google Code, a growing share of the remaining projects were spam or abuse. Lately, the administrative load has consisted almost exclusively of abuse management. After profiling non-abusive activity on Google Code, it has become clear to us that the service simply isn’t needed anymore.

Microsoft is working on an advanced version of its competitor to Apple's Siri, using research from an artificial intelligence project called "Einstein."

Microsoft has been running its "personal assistant" Cortana on its Windows phones for a year, and will put the new version on the desktop with the arrival of Windows 10 this autumn. Later, Cortana will be available as a standalone app, usable on phones and tablets powered by Apple's iOS and Google's Android, people familiar with the project said.

Google has stopped selling the Nexus 5, the company's 2014 flagship Android smartphone. A Google spokesperson told The Verge today that "while some inventory of Nexus 5 still exists (with our retail and carrier partners), our focus is on the Nexus 6 at this time." Searches for the older model on Google's new hardware store show that the Nexus 5 is no longer available for purchase direct from Google.

The BBC will be giving away mini-computers to 11-year-olds across the country as part of its push to make the UK more digital.

One million Micro Bits - a stripped-down computer similar to a Raspberry Pi - will be given to all pupils starting secondary school in the autumn term.

The BBC is also launching a season of coding-based programmes and activities.

From Mass Effect to Skyrim, modern RPGs go to great lengths to merge linear, carefully crafted narrative with dynamic, emergent gameplay. Hundreds of thousands of man-hours are poured into these incredibly complex works, all in the effort to create a believable, cohesive story while giving players a sense of freedom in the way they play their game. The results of these efforts have been best-loved play experiences video games have offered.

But the goal of marrying linear narrative to dynamic gameplay is not out of reach for developers that don't have the resources to create such complex systems. No game shows this better than the classic RPG Chrono Trigger. Crafted by Square's "Dream Team" of RPG developers, Chrono Trigger balances developer control with player freedom using carefully-designed mechanics and a modular approach to narrative.

The new Chromebook Pixel is slightly cheaper than its predecessor, at $999, but it's still wildly more expensive than other Chromebooks. It has almost the exact same design as the original, and thus is a beautiful machine. It still runs Chrome OS, which has advanced significantly in the past two years, but not enough to be a real replacement for what you can do on a Mac or a PC.

But the improvements in battery life and speed are both huge. When you use it, the dichotomy between what your heart wants and what your brain says is almost bittersweet. It's an amazing laptop that I want to use all the time, but when I really need to do more intensive "computer" things, it's not quite enough.

Researchers working with the Central Intelligence Agency have conducted a multi-year, sustained effort to break the security of Apple's iPhones and iPads, according to top-secret documents obtained by The Intercept.

The security researchers presented their latest tactics and achievements at a secret annual gathering, called the "Jamboree," where attendees discussed strategies for exploiting security flaws in household and commercial electronics. The conferences have spanned nearly a decade, with the first CIA-sponsored meeting taking place a year before the first iPhone was released.

Last month my fourth iPhone in six years was, in medical terms, crashing. The screen, which had pulled away from its glue, was behaving strangely. The charging port, no matter how thoroughly I cleaned it, only occasionally took power. Repair would be expensive, especially considering that my contract would be up in about six months. Buying a newer iPhone would mean spending $650 up-front, spending $450 with a new two-year contract or amortizing the price with my carrier's new early upgrade plan. I felt trapped, as every smartphone owner occasionally does, between two much more powerful entities that take me, an effectively captive chain-buying contract iPhone user, for granted. I began to take offense at the malfunctioning iPhone's familiarity. Our relationship was strained and decreasingly rational. I was on a trip and away from home for a few weeks, out of sorts and out of climate, slightly unmoored and very impatient.

And so the same stubborn retail-limbic response that prevented me from avoiding this mess in the first place - by buying an AppleCare insurance plan - activated once more, and I placed an order I had been thinking about for months: One BLU Advance 4.0 Unlocked Dual Sim Phone (White), $89.99 suggested retail (but usually listed lower), $76.14 open-box with overnight shipping. 1,829 customer reviews, 4.3 stars. "This isn't the best phone out there, but it is by far the best phone for only around $80-90," wrote Amazon reviewer Anne.