Future iPhones Could Record, Fingerprints & Photos of Thieves

Apple is reportedly working on a new anti-theft measure which will record the fingerprints and snap photos of a phone-thief.

Patent filed by Apple

An application for a patent filed by Apple details this security mechanism. According to the patent, the mechanism will be incorporated in future iPhone and iPad devices. The patent details a trigger mechanism which will cause the phone to record the biometric information of whoever is using the phone at the triggered moment via the Touch ID button.

How it could work

These trigger conditions could be either when someone is trying to bypass the security of the phone or trying to gain unauthorized access to the phone via a third party device.

Information recorded by the phone can be either one or multiple fingerprints. It can also be one or more photographs of the thief, video recording of the thief, audio of the surrounding environment etc. The patent details:

The computing device may then provide the stored biometric information for identification of one or more unauthorized users

Of course, it’s not as easy as just setting up simple triggers in iOS and that’s that. There are some technical problems with implementing this system.

Problems with the system

Firstly, Touch ID requires you to press your finger several times on to the sensor for it to register it. The fingerprint sensor can only recognise a part of the fingerprint in one go. What’s more, you need to press your finger on it in multiple angles as well. The thief wouldn’t just press his finger on the home button repeatedly in an attempt to unlock the device.

This can be fixed in the future if Apple implements better fingerprint sensors and an improved Touch ID system. Next, a covert way of taking photos or recording video needs to be implemented. This won’t be much of a problem considering that there are already apps like Lookout which do that.

Legal and Privacy Issues

It also raises privacy and security concerns about the new system. If your iPhone can snap photos and record and save a thief’s fingerprints in the company’s database, it is recording yours as well. What’s there to say if the company stores your info on their servers as well?

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook has used the company’s record on privacy and its stance on not storing any unencrypted information to market Apple products and services. However, limitations in these new anti-theft measures means that these features wouldn’t make it into the iPhones and other igadgets any time soon

WhatsApp to share User data with Facebook - 30 Days Left to stop it

Nothing comes for Free, as "Free" is just a relative term used by companies to develop a strong user base and then use it for their own benefits.

The same has been done by the secure messaging app WhatsApp, which has now made it crystal clearthat the popular messaging service will begin sharing its users’ data with its parent company, Facebook.

However, WhatsApp is offering a partial opt-out for Facebook targeted ads and product related purposes, which I will let you know later in this article, but completely opting out of the data-sharing does not seem to be possible.

Let's know what the company has decided to do with your data.

Of course, Facebook is willing to use your data to sell more targeted advertisements.

WhatsApp introduced some significant changes to its privacy policy and T&Cs today which, if accepted once, gives it permission to connect users' Facebook accounts to WhatsApp accounts for the first time, giving Facebook more data about users for delivering more relevant ads on the social network.

The messaging service will also begin pushing users to share some of their account details, including phone numbers, with Facebook, allowing the social network to suggest phone contacts as friends.

When Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 Billion in 2014, users were worried about the company's commitment to protecting its users' privacy. But, WhatsApp reassured them that their privacy would not be compromised in any way.

"Respect for your privacy is coded into our DNA, and we built WhatsApp around the goal of knowing as little about you as possible," said WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum in a blog post published at that time.

Now the WhatsApp users are feeling betrayed by the company's latest move.

However, you need not to worry about the contents of your WhatsApp messages, like words and images, as they are end-to-end encrypted, meaning that even the company cannot read them.

Ultimately, the two companies will be sharing, what they called, a limited amount of user data, which includes phone numbers and other information about users.

No Option to Completely Opt-Out of Data Sharing

If you think WhatsApp is more privacy conscious than Facebook’s Messenger, it is not anymore.

WhatsApp is offering a solution partially to opt out the data sharing, specifically for Facebook ad targeting and product-related purposes.

However, the company notes that data will still be shared "for other purposes such as improving infrastructure and delivery systems, understanding how our services or theirs are used, securing systems, and fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities."

So, those who are thinking to opt out of the data-sharing entirely: There's no possible way to opt totally out.

Though one short solution is to stop using WhatsApp.

Here's How to opt -out of sharing data for Facebook ad-targeting purpose:

The company has outlined two ways to opt out of the exchange of information with Facebook on its blog.

One way is for those users who have not yet agreed to the new terms of service and privacy policy, so before agreeing to the new terms, follow these simple steps:

• When prompted to accept the updated T&Cs, tap Read to expand the full text.
• A checkbox option at the bottom of the policy for sharing your data on Facebook will appear.
• Untick this option before hitting Agree. This will let you opt out of the data-sharing.

The second option is for those who have already accepted the new T&Cs without unchecking the box to share their information with Facebook.

WhatsApp is also offering a thirty-day window for users to make the same choice via the settings page in the app. To exercise your opt-out in this scenario you need to follow these steps:

• Go to Settings → Account → Share my account info in the WhatsApp app
• Uncheck the box displayed there within 30 days, as after that this partial opt-out window will expire.

However, WhatsApp states Facebook will still receive your data in some situations.

After introducing end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp has become one of the most popular secure messaging apps, but this sudden shift in its privacy policy may force some users to switch to other secure apps like Telegram and Signal.

LinkedIn Introduces New Dedicated Service for Hiring Freelancers

Platforms for connecting freelancers with clients are not all that uncommon nowadays with Elance, Freelancer, Fiverr and many more. LinkedIn, the business-oriented social networking site, was behind in this aspect.

Now it looks like they’ve also decided to get in on the freelancing action.

LinkedIn has created a new freelance marketplace called ProFinder. The new marketplace is designed to help freelance professionals find clients both big and small that need their services.

With the new service, all you would have to do is fill out a brief description of the type of work you want done and you are matched with qualified professionals who are a best fit for your project.

How Does LinkedIn ProFinder Work?

In order to hire a freelancer, you will have to search for the service that you need. Currently there are over 140 areas of expertise listed at Linkedin that you can choose from.

After that, you will be required to fill in the form, detailing your specific needs, your location , the time frame, budget and job requirements.

LinkedIn says that within a few hours, you can receive up to 5 proposals from freelancers based on your request and LinkedIn profile.

You will then be contacted by the freelancers with a message, a price quote and also a link to their LinkedIn profiles.

What Makes ProFinder Different than Others?

Vaibhav Goel, the Product Lead for LinkedIn ProFinder, said in an interview that the ProFinder features deep integration with the LinkedIn network, something that makes it attractive when compared with other online freelancer services.

Quality of freelancers is also an issue. ProFinder takes care of this by letting you view the profile of the freelancers, including their work history, references and their connections. People can verify how genuine freelancers are from sources they can trust. This is a big factor in deciding who to hire and it certainly helps.

ProFinder is certainly great tool from a freelancer’s perspective. It’s an improved experience because instead of spending valuable time looking for services, you can hear directly from potential clients.

Some Concerns

But not everything is in favor for the freelancers, there are a couple of disadvantages to this too. One of those is that if the client’s projects on ProFinder don’t come as detailed project outlines. This means that there’s no way to find out the actual amount of work that is needed to be done.

With this problem, the freelancer has no way of setting an appropriate asking price for his/her project. There is also no way to ask questions from the client in regards to this matter either before applying for the project. You can only discuss the matter in detail once the client has accepted you and already confirmed a price.

Secondly, freelancers only have about 5 minutes to set up a proposal and have it sent to the client. So you have to act quickly or face getting locked out from presenting a proposal.

LinkedIn has to make a ton of improvements before ProFinder can become the de-facto leader for freelancers. However, it is good to see the world’s most well-known professional social network getting into the freelancing game. Hopefully, it will listen to concerns of all stakeholders if it wants to make ProFinder useful for the freelancing community.

Whatsapp to Share User Data with Facebook for ad Targeting

Its now official. WhatsApp just stated that they’re sharing user data with Facebook.

In a blogpost updated moments ago, Whatsapp noted:

And by connecting your phone number with Facebook‘s systems, Facebook can offer better friend suggestions and show you more relevant ads if you have an account with them.

In addition to this, Whatsapp has said that it won’t share Whatsapp conversations or content of messages with anyone. That’s something not everyone is going to trust, especially when you consider Facebook’s new ball game.

Let’s not forget that Facebook had bought Whatsapp for a whooping 19 billion dollars. Clearly they didn’t invest this amount of money for a service that doesn’t even generate more than 1$ per customer per year, or in some cases not even a single penny for a lifetime.

What Does This Mean For Us?

Whatsapp had more than a billion active users as of February 2016, which means one in every seven individuals on earth has a Whatsapp account. Resultantly, Facebook — through this acquisition — will have access to major part of communication that we do, and just if you don’t know: more information means more money.

What’s more alarming for some customers would be the fact that Whatsapp could also give access to your communication to governments world over, especially the notorious NSA.

While its still early to say more on how this shared data is going to impact our lives, given the track record, we can predict that its not going to be very beautiful.

No More Snooping: HP’s New Laptops Come with Private Screens

HP has come up with a new integrated privacy screen designed in partnership with the company 3M. It will help stop what HP calls, “visual hacking” or in other words, people looking over on to your laptop’s screen. Dubbed the “Sure View screen”, it will be available with HP’s Elitebook 840 and Elitebook 1040 notebooks.

For Those who Value Their Privacy in Public

Privacy filters are what people mostly use on their laptops to avoid unapproved peeks on their work. The filters are often cumbersome and annoying. They cost about $30-$80 per filter and damaging one requires a complete replacement.

For people who like to watch “videos” privately, HP’s Sure View will be very useful.

The privacy filter is also pretty easy to activate. You only need to press Fn+F2 to turn it on or off.

If you look at the screen from any other angle except for straight on, the screen dims progressively depending on what angle you look it from.

You can see it for yourself below:

Potential Usage Scenarios

This can help when you are at an airport, coffee shop or a restaurant and don’t want others to peek at what you’re doing. Especially, if its sensitive financial information of your company or presentations you don’t want leaked.

This can be a problem often times as generally people just look at anyone’s laptop nonchalantly as there is nothing wrong with what they’re doing.

Sure View won’t prevent people from looking but at least its better than nothing and others can’t view your screen unless they are standing right over your head.

Prices are still not announced, but we expect the price of Sure View screen privacy tech to come bundled for higher end configurations of the Elitebook 840 and 1040, which cost $1,249 and $1,499. For the lower end notebooks, it could cost an extra $60-$80 from the base price.

The touchscreen versions will receive the new tech in September while non-touch versions will get it in October

Lenovo Announces its Latest Generation Gaming PC - All in One

Gaming PCs have been one of the best-looking things you can buy right now and Lenovo has only carried that notion forward. Its newest gaming PCs then, no surprises, look other-worldly and have enough power too.

IdeaCentre Y710 Cube

The IdeaCentre Y710 Cube, following the philosophy of Mac G4 Cube, is a system which is easy-to-carry and has a handle on top. It weighs just 7.4 kilograms and has multiple LEDs on the front.

Under the hood, you get a 6th-generation Intel Core i7 processor, up to a Nvidia GeForce GTX 1080, and up to 32 GB of RAM. You also get a storage of up to a 256 GB SSD, or a 2 TB hard drive. Lenovo says this should be enough for 4K gaming, VR and high-quality streaming.

You also get Dolby Audio, 4 USB ports and Killer DoubleShot Pro Wi-Fi. There is also an option to buy it together with Lenovo’s mechanical keyboard and precision mouse. Pricing starts at $1299 for the version with GTX 1070 though we know where most of the cost in going.

IdeaCentre AIO Y910

The second machine Lenovo announced was the all-in-one IdeaCentre AIO Y910. This one comes with a 27-inch borderless display on the front with QHD (2560 x 1440) resolution.

The hardware is the same at a 6th generation Intel Core i7, up to a GTX 1080 GPU and 32 GB of RAM.

Pricing starts at $1799. Both these systems will be available in October.

INTEL's view on USB Type-C : Future Industry Standard

If you need convincing on why you should give up on that nostalgic headphone jack, Intel may have something under its bag to convince you.

While Apple is likely to nix the audio jack in favor of Lightning port, Intel is providing reasons why you should embrace the Type-C standard instead which you’ll see in way more phones than Lightning.

To be clear, the most surprising thing I find is how quickly people tend to forgot when the headphone jack came in your run-of-the-mill smartphone.

It wasn’t always there. It wasn’t there when Apple first outed its revolutionary touchscreen phone in 2007. Yes, that’s right, it only came next year. The first mainstream phone to get it was the venerable Nokia N95 after which we got an explosion of these devices, all with the 3.5mm jack.

After that, everyone simply started taking these tools for granted and more than a billion and a half phones later, they are everywhere. And arguably, it is that mainstream acceptance which is coming to bite makers now.

In the beginning it seemed like a simple standard. But a decade later it is no way near as sophisticated as the rest of the phone. That is certainly not an unexpected phenomenon, as we’ve seen elsewhere with Windows 7 and the 30-pin connector.

Consumers hate change, especially when it makes you spend more. We always do, particularly when the gains are minimal. But at least in this case, they are not.

Why USB Type-C

For once, the Type-C standard brings much more sophistication in audio. Features like noise-cancelling and bass boosting will be more accessible, making accessories even cheaper.

It also helps with power management, allowing the phone to shut off the connector if the user isn’t using it for a period of time, saving useful amounts of battery. It will also be used for authenticating a user’s device.

Going Type-C won’t require analog-to-digital circuitry in phones any longer, meaning even more slim designs. Finally, Intel is also unveiling a new video format for the Type-C connection, which is not really meant to be a replacement for HDMI but will be good enough for movies or productivity (though, not for gaming).

Lastly, there is the hard fact that the headphone jack is plain dumb and ill-suited for a smartphone as high-end as, say, the Galaxy Note7. Manufacturers have been trying to shrink components (like the SIM card) or replace them with newer technology in this digital age to bring much more efficiency and innovation.

Yet the audio jack stands out as the lone single-purpose device which, if not for its mass usage, could’ve likely been among the first components to get the axe.

Of course, you can argue that you will require a new dongle (which is somewhat absurd as you can simply leave it plugged to your headphones) and can only either charge the phone or get your media at the once (you can always go wireless).

But at this point, for someone like Apple or Intel, points like these don’t matter because that technology is simply archaic and is hindering the arrival of more sophisticated technology. The only point of slight contention are the various standards for Type-C connections, meaning the port on your phone may not be as capable as the one on your laptop.

China Launches World's 1st Hack-Proof Quantum Communication Satellite

China has taken one more step forward towards achieving success in Quantum communication technology.

China has launched the world's first quantum communications satellite into orbit aboard a Long March-2D rocket earlier today in order to test the fundamental laws of quantum mechanics at space.

'Hack-Proof' Communications System

The satellite, dubbed Quantum Science Satellite, is designed to develop a 'Hack-Proof' communications system in this age of global electronic surveillance and cyber attacks by transmitting uncrackable encryption keys from space to the ground.

The 600-plus-kilogram Quantum Science Satellite, better known as Quantum Experiments at Space Scale (QUESS) satellite, took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center in Gobi Desert at 1:40 AM local time on a 2-year mission on Tuesday.

The QUESS satellite will help China perform unprecedented levels of experiments in quantum communication by sending entangled photons from the satellite to relay stations in China and Europe, which is separated by about 1,200 kilometers (746 miles).

The pioneering experiment is to test if the spooky property of quantum entanglement can work at long distances as well.

The satellite's payloads include:

• Quantum key communicator
• Quantum entanglement emitter
• Quantum entanglement source
• Quantum experiment controller
• Processor
• Laser communicator

The payloads, designed to operate for two years, were developed by the National Space Science Center in Beijing under the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The QUESS satellite will also test the possibilities of communication via quantum 'teleportation,' using an entangled pair of photons.

If the satellite is able to successfully transmit quantum information securely between two ground stations, it could have huge implications for encryption and cryptography.

China has largely been ambitious to realize the importance of Quantum technology. From past two decades, Quantum technology has been a top strategic focus in the country's 5-year economic development plan.

While the United States invested about $200 Million a year in quantum research, China spent $101 Billion in quantum physics in 2015, up from $1.9 Billion in 2005.

China Invests Billions of Dollars in Quantum Technology

Quantum communication encryption is secure against any kind of interception because information is encoded in a quantum particle in such a way that it will be destroyed as soon as the system detects any intrusion attempts.

For example, when two people share an encrypted quantum message and a third person intercepts it, the message will change in an unpredictable way.

Quantum researchers have recently experimented the use of photons to successfully communicate securely over short distances on earth.

But if successful, the QUESS satellite would vastly expand the range of unhackable communication to long distances as well.

"The newly-launched satellite marks a transition in China's role - from a follower in classic information technology development to one of the leaders guiding future achievements," Pan Jianwei, the scientist who is leading the project, told the official Xinhua news agency.

If successful, the QUESS satellite would be the world's first transcontinental quantum key distribution network of its kind and China hopes to erect a global quantum communications network in 2030.

"If China is going to send more quantum communication satellites into orbit, we can expect a global network of quantum communications to be set up around 2030," Pan added.

Apple to Debut 3 New iPad Models in 2017 : Reports

The last earnings report from Apple indicated how important the tablet business still is for Apple. The last quarter saw Apple selling 9-percent less iPads, yet the revenue grew 7 percent thanks to a higher selling price. Now, it seems it could be bringing new models to attain whatever market share’s left in the tablets space.

A new report, courtesy of MacRumors via noted analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, indicates that three new iPads could be coming in 2017, including the first ever 10.5-inch iPad that can occupy the middle ground between the larger models. Other variants include a new, cheaper 9.7-inch model and a 12.9-inch model to sit either side.

There is no word given for the iPad Mini as he thinks the arrival of the larger iPhones could have quashed the demand of the smaller tablet, altogether.

More-important, however, are the big changes that Apple has planned for 2018. The year could see the company revealing a “revolutionary” AMOLED iPad model with a flexible display and “radical” design changes. No further details were given for the same.

As for the near future, Ming-Chi Kui lowered his expectations of the current line-up’s shipments, shunning it from 45-50 million to just 35-40 million tablets, given the lack of models which are to be expected this year.

The market for tablets has for long been considered to be fairly stagnant, but it now appears that we could be headed towards some exciting announcements finally. Or perhaps it could be the final hurrah for the market? Only time will tell.