Android Wear Presents Timely Competition For Apple Watch

The wristwatch has been a fashion accessory for almost 450 years, but technology has transformed what was once a mere timepiece into a $30 billion industry. At the heart of this movement is the Apple Watch, a re-imagining of the wristwatch that has turned the space on its ear by marrying wearable tech wizardry with sleek, modern design.

With the inclusion of tech, something else interesting has also happened to the humble wristwatch: It has developed the potential to be a valuable business tool, as well.

With 38 different watches available, Apple has called its Watch the most personalized device it has ever created. But there’s still a chance for a competitor, like Google Android Wear, to take a bite out of the Apple Watch market share — and enterprise usability just might be a key point of difference.

Android Wear devices offer many tools and services that can positively impact the daily life of corporate users. Android Wear’s biggest value-add for both regular consumers and professional users is the ability to communicate through the smartwatch itself. Because it syncs to your phone, all of your alerts and notifications get pushed directly to your wrist — and that wrist vibration can keep you from missing calls in meetings or in loud occupational environments like server rooms or manufacturing floors.

Plus, those who travel for work will benefit from Android Wear’s travel cards, which pop up when a trip is scheduled in your Google calendar. This means QR codes for boarding passes load to your wrist, as do hotel reservations, local traffic conditions and turn-by-turn driving directions, when needed.

Features like these might be Google’s ticket to get ahead in the smartwatch segment. There are many potential paths to this possibility — but here are three ways it could finally pluck Apple Watch from its place at the top of the heap.

Delivering A Swiss-Made Smartwatch

To date, Samsung, LG, Motorola, Asus and Sony have all released Android Wear watches. Those brands have one thing in common: None of them are watchmakers.

On the other hand, the Swiss produce only a little more than 2 percent of the world’s watches, but capture more than half the global watch revenue. They produce some of the finest watches in the world, and Swiss watchmakers have accumulated thousands of patents that cover everything from clasps to mechanical function. Even the watch faces themselves are valuable: In 2012, Apple reportedly paid $21 million to the Swiss Federal Railway service to use its iconic watch-face design for the clock in iOS6.

Technology has transformed what was once a mere timepiece into a $30 billion industry.

To deliver the ultimate in modern form-meets-fashion, the answer is fairly simple: bring smartwatch technology into mechanical and quartz watches without sacrificing quality or style. In other words, get the Swiss on board! Not only would it be a boon to smartwatch buyers who don’t want to sacrifice fashion for function — it also could help Swiss watchmakers survive the digital age.

Harnessing The Power Of Project Ara And Android Wear OS

Google has spent a lot of time recently trying to regain control over Android. There’s been an uptick in Chinese OEMs leveraging the Android Open Source Project (AOSP), as well as momentum behind Cyanogen. This has resulted in Google preventing customization of some newer product releases, like Android Wear.

However, if Google completely open-sourced Android Wear, it would allow manufacturers to customize the OS for specific use cases, like for divers, pilots and the military. It could also ease the incorporation of Android Wear into Project Ara.

Project Ara is Google’s open hardware initiative for smartphones. The idea is to modularize the components of a phone (CPU, storage, camera, etc.) into an open platform to which any engineer — not just large hardware manufacturers — can contribute modules. These modules can be “hot swapped” or changed on the fly.

For example, an old camera module can be unplugged from the phone’s endoskeleton frame, and replaced with a newer high-resolution camera. Or you can choose to remove your Bluetooth module and add extra storage.

Google could bring together traditional Swiss craftsmanship with Silicon Valley technology.

This is a great initiative, but right now, it’s limited in scope. Why stop at smartphones? The components that live in a smartwatch, like the CPU, Bluetooth and storage, can easily fit inside a traditional watch. This is the integration point between Google and the Swiss. Project Ara for Android Wear, integrated into a Swiss watch, gives consumers the best of both worlds.

For example, you don’t need to worry about a smartwatch becoming dated, as the components can be upgraded as needed. Even better, you can keep your beloved Swiss mechanical function and watch face.

Thinking Outside the Box — And The Watch Face

Both Google and Apple stress that their product is more than just a watch. At Google IO, they are quick to point out that more than 4,000 apps have been created for their device. Today, the most interesting apps don’t even require an electronic display on the watch, such as functions for payment, identity, audio commands and fitness.

Imagine being able to hold up your Breitling to the NFC payment reader at your local supermarket to buy groceries, or automatically unlocking your car door with your Patek Philippe. Go out on a run and have your Swiss Army watch record your workout. Channel James Bond and talk into a microphone in your Omega Seamaster. The use-cases and customizations are endless and exciting.

Even better news? There is precedent for these types of partnerships. Google recently partnered with Levi’s on Project Jacquard to bring gesture and touch-sensing textiles to the masses.

Is there still a window for Google to win the smartwatch race, and drive billions in new revenue into the watch industry? Yes. By leveraging its hardware platform, Project Ara, and completely open-sourcing the Android Wear operating system, Google could bring together traditional Swiss craftsmanship with Silicon Valley technology into packages that deliver variety, and allow more consumers to become smartwatch owners.

Pro PoS - Malware Could Steal Your Christmas

The point of Sale systems are the most tempting target for cyber crooks to steal your credit card information and with this Christmas, you need to be more careful while using your credit cards at retailers and grocery stores.

Here's why…

Cyber criminals are now selling a new powerful strain of Point of Sale (PoS) malware through underground forums.

Like several POS malware families discovered last year, including vSkimmer and BlackPOS, the new malware is also designed to steal payment card data from the infected POS systems and support TOR to hide its C&C (Command and Control) servers.

Pro PoS – Light Weight, Yet Powerful Malware

However, the new malware, dubbed "Pro PoS," packs more than just a PoS malware.

Pro PoS weighs only 76KB, implements rootkit functionalities, as well as mechanisms to avoid antivirus detection, according to threat intelligence firm InfoArmor.

What's even more interesting about this malware is…

Pro PoS integrates a polymorphic engine that lets the threat generate a different signature for each malware sample – a measure designed to foil security defences.

InfoArmor warned that cyber crooks were actively using the current version of Pro PoS Solution in an effort to target PoS systems used by large retailers and SMBs in the United States and Canada specifically.

Pro PoS Malware found in the Wild

The developers of the Pro PoS malware are believed to be hackers from Eastern Europe, according to the security firm.

On November 27 (Black Friday), researchers at InfoArmor noticed a significant increase in the price of the Pro PoS Solution, which was offered at $2,600 for a six-month licence.

The developers of Pro PoS have designed their malware in such a way that it infects the principal operating systems, including newer operating systems, used by the companies in the retail environment.

Russian UnderGroud VSkimmer Botnet Targeting E-Payment

A new botnet emerged from underground and is menacing payment world, the cyber threat dubbed vSkimmer come from Russia according revelation of McAfee security firm. 

The security expert Chintan Shah wrote on a blog post that during monitoring of Russian underground forum found a discussion about a Trojan for sale that can steal credit card information from Windows PC for financial transactions and credit card payments. 

vSkimmer agent is able to detect card readers on the victim’s machine and gather all the information from the Windows machines sending it to a remote control server encrypting it (Base64).

The malware collects the following information from the infected machine and sends it to the control server:

• Machine GUID from the Registry
• Locale info
• Username
• Hostname
• OS version

The vSkimmer malware indicated as the successor of the popular Dexter, a financial malware that targeted Point-of-Sale systems to grab card data as it transmitted during sales flow.

Dexter is responsible for the loss of nearly 80,000 credit card records and data breach of payment card data of Subway restaurants in 2012.

According security researchers at McAfee vSkimemr appeared in the underground forum since February and it could be an ongoing project.

vSkimmer appears more sophisticated of Dexter despite it is easier to use, vSkimmer is an advanced tool to steal credit card data from Windows hosts.

Exactly as its predecessor Dexter, vSkimmer is completely undetectable on the compromised host. vSkimmer waits for a named USB device to be attached to the compromised machine and once detected it the malware dumps the collected data to the removable device. 

“vSkimmer can also grab the Track 2 data stored on the magnetic strip of the credit cards. This track stores all the card information including the card number.”

To be precise on Track 2 was stored card number, three-digit CVV code, and expiration date are stored, all necessary to qualify card in payment processes.

On credit card information grabbing the post states:

“VSkimmer maintains the white listed process, which it skips while enumerating the running processes on the infected machine.Once vSkimmer finds any running process not in the white list, it runs Open Process and Read Process Memory to read the memory pages of the process and invokes the pattern-matching algorithm to match the regular expression “?[3-9]{1}[0-9]{12,19}[D=\\u0061][0-9]{10,30}\\??”)” and extract the card info read by the payment devices. This is done recursively for every process running in the infected machine and not on the white list.”

VSkimmer demonstrated the great interest of cyber crime in payments sector institutions have already been attacked in the past by malicious code such as Zeus and SpyEye and this case is just “another example of how financial fraud is actively evolving and how financial Trojans were developed and passed around in the underground community.” This botnet is particularly interesting because it directly targets card-payment terminals running Windows,” Shah explained in his post, I found really interesting the fact that the offer of similar malware in the underground is increasing and their model of sale is reaching level of excellence never seen first ... we face difficult times.

Li-Fi is 100 Times Faster than Wi-Fi Technology - Practically Proved

Yes, it's time to shift from Wi-Fi to Li-Fi — an alternative technology that is 100 times faster than the average speeds of Wi-Fi.

Scientists have just field-tested the new wireless technology called Li-Fi for the first time and achieved marvelous wireless speeds that are 100 times faster than current WiFi speeds.

What is Li-Fi Technology?

Li-Fi is a new wireless technology that transmits high-speed data using light (i.e. Visible Light Communication or VLC) rather than radio bands.

In short, Li-Fi is a Super-Fast alternative to Wi-Fi.

Earlier this year, scientists achieved mind-blowing speeds of 224 gigabits per second (Gbps) in the lab using Li-Fi. It's believed that this technology has the potential to change everything about the way we use the Internet today.

And Yes, it will.

Test Results: Li-Fi is 100 times Faster than Wi-Fi

An Estonian startup company called Velmenni took the technology out of the laboratories and into the real-world offices, and industrial environments in Tallinn for the first time and, believe me, it's really, really fast.

The company was able to transmit data at 1GB per second, which is almost 100 times faster than the Wi-Fi speeds.

"We are doing a few pilot projects in different industries where we can utilize the VLC technology,"Velmenni's CEO Deepak Solanki told IBTimes UK.
"Currently we have designed a smart lighting solution for an industrial environment where the data communication is done through the light. We're also doing a pilot project with a private client where we're setting up a Li-Fi network to access the Internet in [our] office space."

Unlike Wi-Fi network signals, Li-Fi is based on light and can't penetrate through walls, which makes it more secure from external sniffing. Meanwhile, it also means there is less interference from other devices.

Who Invented Li-Fi?

The Li-Fi technology was originated in 2011 by German physicist Harald Haas, who outlined the idea of using light bulbs as wireless routers during a TED Talk. He demonstrated that with a flickering light from an LED, one could transmit more data than a cellular tower.

You can watch the full video of Haas talk about the Li-Fi technology in 2011 given below.

Bluestack 2: For Android Apps on Windows & Mac OS X

Bluestacks, the first app player for running Android apps on Windows, has launched the latest version of its Android emulator platform with one major upgrade:

• The Ability to Run Multiple Android apps Simultaneously.

BlueStacks 2 Released

Bluestacks previously only run a single app at a time. However, with the launch of BlueStacks 2, the app adds a tabbed interface that allows you to jump between multiple Android apps in the same window.

This is great for you to run gaming and messaging apps, or news and messaging apps at the same time.

The update also adds a toolbar that allows you to quickly tell the Android emulator to simulate rotating the device screen or to perform other functions, such as copying and pasting.

In BlueStacks 2, players now have options to marry game play and app discovery, meaning when they click an advertisement, a new tab will appear so that the players can continue playing their games without being interrupted.

How to Run Multiple Android apps Using BlueStacks 2

BlueStacks 2 is currently available only on Windows, but will soon debut on Macs in July.

Follow these simple steps to go:

Step 1: To use and run multiple Android apps simultaneously, you need to first Download BlueStacks 2, which is free.

Step 2: Install BlueStacks 2 software on your Windows computer.

Step 3: Once installed, you will land on the Welcome Tab. Just Move to 'Android' tab.

Step 4: Software will ask you for One-time Google Account Setup, just like an Android device ask for.

Step 5: Login with your Google account to complete the Setup and you are ready!

Step 6: From 'Android' tab select multiple apps you want to run in parallel. BlueStacks 2 will open each app in a new Tab within the software interface.

With the seventh-largest Android user base in the world, Bluestacks has crossed more than 109 Million app downloads, engaging more than 1.1 Billion Android apps every month.

"When we started, mobile apps, with their crisp resolution looked and sounded gorgeous on PC and TV," said Shashi Kant Sharma, Product Manager at BlueStacks.

"What we’ve learned is that the wider visual space lends itself more naturally to app discovery. Once someone discovers apps on PC or TV, they tend to use them across all of their devices, giving the BlueStacks platform powerful reach for developers."