California law removes ban on alternative currencies

A new California law removes a ban on using currencies other than the U.S. dollar, which is intended to accommodate the growing use of alternative payment methods such as bitcoin.

The law, signed by state Governor Jerry Brown on Saturday, is likely to boost confidence around bitcoin, as regulators and tax authorities worldwide examine how to handle the popular virtual currency.

It repeals Section 107 of California's Corporations Code, which prohibited companies or individuals from issuing money other than U.S. dollars, according to the bill, introduced by Assembly Member Roger Dickinson.

Dickinson wrote earlier this month in a news release that people using digital currencies, community currencies and reward points were in violation of the law but not penalized. From Amazon's Coins to Starbucks' Stars to bitcoin, "it is impractical to ignore the growing use of cash alternatives," he wrote.

In March, the U.S. Internal Revenue Service said it will treat bitcoin as a form of property for tax purposes, rather than as currency, making it subject to similar rules as stocks and barter transactions.

Those receiving goods and services in bitcoin will have to add the value of the virtual currency at the time it was received into their gross income, the agency said in its guidance.

Earlier this year, the U.K's. tax agency clarified how taxes apply to bitcoins. HM Revenue & Custom said exchanging or mining bitcoins is exempt from value-added tax (VAT) in the UK, but accepting the virtual currency for goods and services is subject to it.

While banks are still generally steering clear of bitcoin, there are signs of confidence in it from private companies.

Apple updated its App Store guidelines earlier this month to allow for applications handling "approved virtual currencies" as long as the apps comply with state and federal laws. The company had previously removed many transactional bitcoin apps from its store.

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Facebook researcher: 'We care about the emotional impact of Facebook'

A Facebook researcher behind a controversial psychology experiment on users has defended the research, saying it was aimed at looking into a common concern that seeing friends post positive content on the social networking website leads people to feel negative or left out.

The researchers were also concerned that exposure to friends' negativity might lead people to avoid visiting Facebook. "We didn't clearly state our motivations in the paper," researcher Adam D.I. Kramer wrote on his Facebook page Sunday.

"The reason we did this research is because we care about the emotional impact of Facebook and the people that use our product," Kramer wrote.

After a storm of protest on the Internet that Facebook was manipulating its users' emotions with the experiment that doctored the content on the news feeds of close to 700,000 users, Kramer appeared to be having second thoughts about the experiment. "In hindsight, the research benefits of the paper may not have justified all of this anxiety."

The research by Kramer and two others, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, described the use of an algorithm to manipulate content in the News Feed of 689,003 users in two parallel experiments. In one the exposure to friends' positive emotional content in the news feed was reduced, while in the other exposure to negative emotional content in the feed was reduced.

The aim of the experiment was to find out whether exposure to emotions led people to change their own posting behavior, and in which direction.

The research concluded that emotional states "can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness," without in-person interaction and nonverbal cues, and that the observation of others' positive experiences constitutes a positive experience for people.

The response to news of the experiment was, however, overwhelmingly negative. Even when Facebook manipulates news feeds to sell things to users, it is supposed, legally and ethically, to meet certain minimal standards, wrote James Grimmelmann, professor of law at the University of Maryland in a blog post. Ads, for example, are labeled as such, even if at times not clearly, he said. "This study failed even that test, and for a particularly unappealing research goal: We wanted to see if we could make you feel bad without you noticing. We succeeded," Grimmelmann added.

Kramer wrote in his post that the experiment, conducted in early 2012, was the result of "minimally deprioritizing" a small percentage of content in News Feed for about 0.04 percent of users, or 1 in 2500 for the short period of one week, which is a big number considering the large number of users Facebook has. Nobody's posts were "hidden," but they just didn't show up on some loads of Feed. "Those posts were always visible on friends' timelines, and could have shown up on subsequent News Feed loads," he added.

Kramer did not respond to criticism that the social networking company did not take permission of its users to do the experiment. However, in the paper, the authors had noted that the experiment procedure "was consistent with Facebook's Data Use Policy, to which all users agree prior to creating an account on Facebook, constituting informed consent for this research."

Facebook will include what it has learned from the reaction to the paper in its internal review practices for such experiments, which it continually works on improving, Kramer said. "The experiment in question was run in early 2012, and we have come a long way since then," he added.

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IT spending growth to be slower than expected in 2014 due to pricing pressure, Gartner says

IT research firm Gartner has cut its forecast for global IT spending by about one-third for this year, blaming a tougher competitive environment and subsequent pressure on vendors to lower prices.

Spending will rise 2.1 percent to US$3.7 trillion in 2014, down from the 3.2 percent growth rate Gartner had predicted for 2014.

The downgraded forecast isn't necessarily a cause for concern, said Gartner managing vice president Richard Gordon in an interview.

"In the context of an improving global economic situation, to have IT spending be anemic, in the low single digits, might be a surprise on the face of it," he said. But customers aren't necessarily cutting back on spending, Gordon said. "They're getting better deals for their money and spending their money carefully."

Data center system spending will be the slowest growing category in 2014, rising only 0.4 percent to $140 billion due to factors such as lower-cost storage options in the cloud and a move away from high-end server systems.

Devices spending will rise just 1.2 percent to $685 billion due to price cuts on mobile phones and tablets, Gartner said.

IT services revenue is expected to jump 3.8 percent this year to $967 billion after "weak vendor performance" in 2013, according to Gartner. Within this category, however, spending on IT outsourcing has been slowed by the ongoing price war between cloud storage vendors. Implementation services revenue is being constrained by customers choosing to conduct smaller projects.

Meanwhile, enterprise software revenue will rise 6.9 percent in 2014 to $321 billion, buoyed by stronger growth in infrastructure software sales but tempered by a slower rise in spending on applications, Gartner said.

The increase in connected devices in the so-called Internet of Things will help push software sales higher in coming years, Gordon said. "With IoT and digital business in general, you've got a lot more data out there that needs to be collected, stored and analyzed."

Finally, telecom services revenue will also see meager growth this year, rising 0.7 percent to $1.635 trillion. Average revenue per user for voice services is expected to decline 10 percent each year through 2018, again due to competitive pressures among carriers as well as emerging free or advertising-supported service offerings, Gartner said.

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8 ways the password is dying

Google's massive I/O conference was chock full of trends and portents, but one of the most intriguing messages to trickle out of the show was far more subtle than the Android-everywhere blitz: Google is finally making good on its quest to kill the password.

Every single major platform Google promotes declared war on the password in some fashion. And Google's far from the only company to come up with interesting authentication alternatives to memorizing long codes of numbers, letters, and special characters. From digitized tattoos to Bluetooth trickery and beyond, here's how big names like Google, Apple, Samsung, and others are trying to kill the password.

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Aereo 'temporarily' ends service after Supreme Court ruling

If you subscribe to Aereo, the service that lets you stream live TV for a small monthly fee, you may have noticed that your service ended abruptly this morning.

In a letter posted to the company's website Saturday morning, Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia announced that the company has "decided to pause [its] operations temporarily" and would discontinue service at 11:30am Eastern Time. Current Aereo subscribers will receive a refund for their last paid month of their subscription, according to the company.

"The spectrum that the broadcasters use to transmit over the air programming belongs to the American public," the letter states. "And we believe you should have a right to access that live programming whether your antenna sits on the roof of your home, on top of your television or in the cloud."

Aereo's shutdown comes on the heels of last Wednesday's ruling from the US Supreme Court, which states that, despite its technical trickery, Aereo is breaking copyright laws by rebroadcasting TV programming to its subscribers without permission from TV networks and broadcasters. 

The company has maintained that since each of its subscribers has their own antenna assigned to them, Aereo wasn't actually rebroadcasting to the masses and was instead merely relaying individual broadcasts to its users.

Aereo is still determining what its next steps are, so while Aereo frames the shutdown as a temporary measure, there's no telling how long the company will be out of commission. 

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Facebook messed with users' emotions--for science!

Facebook has gotten plenty of flack for its privacy practices, but here's a new way to distrust the social media service: It may be playing with your emotions.

As reported by The A.V. Club, in January 2012, Facebook adjusted its newsfeed algorithm for several hundred thousand users to see how what you see in your newsfeed affects your emotional state as part of a scientific study.

The resulting paper, published to The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), found that people mirror the positive or negative emotions that their friends express in Facebook posts—all without the aid of nonverbal cues like body language or tone of voice.

To pull this off, Facebook engineers tweaked what 600,000 users saw in their newsfeeds so that some saw more posts that expressed positive emotions, while others saw more posts that conveyed negative feelings. The result? People actually responded in kind: Those who saw more "positive" posts responded more positively, while those who saw more "negative" posts responded with negative feelings of their own.

It's a fascinating study, if more than a little creepy in terms of methodology.

The data collection methods are a bit...unsettling, but as A.V Club reports, the paper's authors specifically state that their data collection falls within the bounds of Facebook's privacy policy.

It's a fascinating study, if more than a little creepy in terms of methodology. No word on how people responded to increased exposure to selfies.

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Wall Street Beat: GoPro continues to soar after IPO as Nasdaq surges

Shares of action-camera maker GoPro shot up again Friday, a day after its IPO, riding on the rise of tech stocks and continuing confidence in IT.

GoPro shares jumped 30 percent from its opening price Thursday on the Nasdaq, and ascended by another 14 percent (US$4.56) to close at $35.90 Friday. The share price rose so quickly that it left some market watchers criticizing GoPro's executives as leaving money on the table—meaning, they should have raised the IPO price to take in as much cash as possible.

But GoPro played it smart, said John Fitzgibbon, who runs the IPOScoop.com website. "If a company sets the price too high they run the risk of litigation when they get hit with a class-action suit when the share price goes down," Fitzgibbon said. "I've been hearing about companies 'leaving money on the table' for years, but you also have to remember that the price is set in negotiations between the company and the bankers; you try to reach a happy medium, where the price seems like a pretty fair value and also gives returns for shareholders."

But the bigger picture is that GoPro's success is yet another sign that things are bubbling along nicely for tech, despite the fact that actual sales results for major vendors this year have been mixed.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq is creeping up toward its high point, reached in early 2000 just before the dot-com crash. It closed Friday up by 18.88 points at 4,397.93, its highest point since the spring of 2000.

But things are different now, Fitzgibbon said. "You have a different IPO market—you don't have a hot, frothy stock market underneath it," Fitgibbon said. It's taken 14 years for the Nasdaq to get back to the 4000-plus range, and though the Nasdaq Computer Index is up 39 percent year over year, it's been strong but relatively stable since the start of the year—up 9 percent since Jan. 1. That's one reason why there have been more IPOs in tech in the last 12 months than for any other sector except for health care.

The IPO train is not expected to stop anytime soon, analysts said.

"As long as IPOs continue to generate positive returns, we expect IPO issuance to remain active for the remainder of 2014," reads a report issued Friday by Renaissance Capital. "An increasing number of global companies are announcing their intentions to pursue an IPO. Notable companies in our Global IPO Pipeline that we expect to list in 2014 include China's largest e-commerce firm Alibaba Group."

Underlying the strong market for tech stocks and IPOs is an apparent confidence on the part of industry insiders that IT provides a competitive advantage and that overall, the economy is stable enough to warrant an increase in tech spending budgets.

"CIOs now have higher conviction in budgets versus three months ago and spending mindset remains biased towards investing for growth rather than cost cutting," reads a CIO survey released this week by Morgan Stanley. "Purchases decision cycles also shortened in the past three months, which we view as an encouraging sign."

The strong stock market and underlying confidence in the sector is also boosting tech mergers and acquisitions. The value of all tech mergers and acquisitions deals whose values were disclosed in the first quarter worldwide was $66.6 billion, up 83 percent year over year and the highest level since—once again—2000, according to a recent report from EY (formerly Ernst & Young).

Tech vendors are trying to position themselves to take advantage, among other things, of the move to mobile and cloud technology by consumers and businesses, which is fueling a lot of the excitement about tech these days. In light of a stable stock market, which helps the process of calculating a fair value for acquisition targets, and enthusiasm for new technology, vendors having been going on a spending spree.

A case in point: Oracle's announcement this week of its pending acquisition of retail and hospitality technology vendor Micros, its biggest acquisition since buying Sun Microsystems in 2010.

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With components, Google agitates for a revolution in Web development

At the Google I/O conference this week, the company vigorously lobbied developers to adopt a new programming model, one that could, the company asserted, make it radically easier to build Web applications.

In multiple sessions through the conference, Google engineers spoke about Web Components, an evolving World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standard designed to help organize complex Web pages by providing a mechanism to assemble them using small single-function components.

"Web Components utterly change the Web platform. This isn't hyperbole. This actually changes everything," said Matthew McNulty, a Google engineering manager, during a presentation at the conference, which was held in San Francisco.

The standard could be important because "it introduces a new world where components from different vendors can live together on the same page. Apps can be crafted from parts found on a massive shelf," McNulty. "It's about composability. It gives you just enough of a container that the Web becomes composable."

Meet Polymer

Google has been working on its own library, called Polymer, that makes it easier to use and extend Web Components. "Polymer does all the hard work to make [Web Components] a cohesive system," McNulty said.

"The idea behind Polymer is to leverage the Web Components standard," said Al Hilwa, an IDC research program director for software development.

Hilwa noted that Polymer is an attempt to bring advanced extensibility to the Web platform, in much the same way that the Java Enterprise Edition and Microsoft .Net allows developers to share components and rapidly build applications using the work of others.

Although work on Web Components has been going on since 2010, the technology now seems to be picking up momentum.

Google's Chrome 36, which will ship in a few weeks and is ready in the beta channel now, will support Web Components. It is the first browser to do so.

"This is a milestone in Web development," said Eric Bildeman, a Google engineer working on the Chrome team, during another presentation on the technology.

In many ways, Web Components finally delivers the advanced coding tools and techniques that developers in other languages have long enjoyed, such as objects, templates and data binding (though the data binding is offered by Polymer, not Web Components itself).

HTML running out of steam?

Despite its almost universal use over the past decade, HTML, which provides the basic mark-up format for building Web pages, hasn't been advanced much in terms of helping developers build complex Web applications, Bildeman said.

For instance, there is no one standardized way in HTML to load additional elements into a Web page without help from external technologies such as PHP or Apache modules. Both JavaScript and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) have long offered the ability to call in external files when a browser renders a Web page.

The recent emergence of HTML5 has provided a lot of support for advanced technology, such as local storage, geolocation and semantic tagging. But Web components are designed specifically help to make developers more productive, Bildeman said.

However, Web Components does require a different way of thinking about how to build Web apps, Bildeman said.

Web Components is actually an umbrella term, covering four different specifications that, when used together, provides the foundation for building a componentized Web pages.

Perhaps the core technology for Web Components is an import tag for HTML. While it sounds simple, the HTML import tag can save developers from what is known as dependency hell, in which they must declare, in the body of a page, all the libraries that will be needed to execute the code.

Instead, developers can embed that information within a component, and have the page call the component. The component can then be used by other pages as well.

The import tag allows developers to define their own elements, which can then be called by the browser.

Users can write their own elements, use those written by others, or even extend the elements that others have created with new features. Elements can also contain connections to other resources on the Web by wrapping around external APIs (application programming interface calls).

"There is logical separation now. It's about compartmentalizing the problem, so it's no longer just a bunch of JavaScript, HTML and CSS that you are hoping will work together," Bildeman said.

Support coming from other browsers?

Beyond Google, other browsers makers seem to be taking a hard look at the technology.

Mozilla has already included a number of functions to support Web Components, and Apple and Microsoft appear to be investigating the possibility of including support in their browsers. Opera, because it uses Google Chrome Blink layout engine, will support Web Components by default.

Google has been testing Web Components in its own operations. The Polymer site uses components. Google's site for documenting the progress of Chrome development also uses components to fetch data from a database and render it on screen.

The ChromeOS operating system, used in Google Chromebooks, uses Web Components to power its virtual keyboard and media player.

Interest in Web Components seems to be growing elsewhere as well. A number of component registries where developers can use and contribute their own components have popped up, including Custom Elements, Component Kitchen, and WebComponents.org.

"This ecosystem is just getting started," McNulty said.

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How to install the Android L developer preview on your Nexus 5 or Nexus 7

By now, you might already know a thing or nine about Android L, the latest version of Google's mobile operating system. You may also know that developer previews for the Nexus 5 and Nexus 7 (2013) are now available to download and install. They're hardly in final form and not totally stable, but you can install them on your own accord, and I'm going to show you how. 

Note: This method is relevant for installing any and all Android factory images from Google for Nexus phones or tablets. If you want to go back to another version of the OS, simply download the appropriate file from here and perform the same steps below!

Prerequisites:

First up, head over to this link to download the Android L developer preview. The builds are named by the devices' code names: the code name for the Nexus 5 is Hammerhead and the Nexus 7 is Razor. After the file is finished downloading, extract it to your desktop for later use. The extracted file will be a folder named either hammerhead-lp79 or razor-lp79.

Now, find the folder that the ADB and Fastboot files currently reside in and open it. Open the folder your just extracted, highlight all of the files and drag them into the ADB folder.

Open a command window to your ADB folder by holding down the Shift button on your keyboard and right click on the open folder. Click on the Open command window here option. (On a Mac you'd use Terminal.)

Just to make sure everything is correctly setup, we're going to run a few commands first. 

In the command window, type in adb devices. The window should return List of attached devices with a combination of letters and numbers below it. (something like 01vu6m6633fgh39r    device).

If you do not see this after typing adb devices, something is wrong and you won't be able to continue until it is fixed. Assuming your device was found, type in the following command to boot your phone into bootloader mode: adb reboot bootloader

Give the phone a few seconds to boot into bootloader mode, and then type the following: flash-all.bat. This will begin the flashing process. 

After a few minutes, your Nexus 5 or Nexus 7 will reboot. You'll be presented with the new boot animation, and it may take a while to fully boot up, so give it some time. You're good to go!

—

In short:

• Download file
• Extract
• Move files into the same folder as ADB
• Open command window from ADB folder
• Connect phone: (test connection: adb devices)
• adb reboot bootloader
• flash-all.bat

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Facebook tries to recover bulk user data seized by New York law enforcement

Facebook user data in bulk was sought last year by the New York County District Attorney's office and a court directed it to produce virtually all records and communications for 381 accounts, the company disclosed Thursday.

The social networking giant is now asking the court for the return or destruction of the data as well as a ruling on whether the bulk warrants violated the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and other laws. The Fourth Amendment prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures of property.

The company said that since last July it has been fighting a set of sweeping search warrants issued by the Supreme Court for New York County that demanded that it turn over to law enforcement nearly all data from the accounts of the 381 people, including photos, private messages and other information.

Facebook was also prohibited from informing the targeted persons, who included "high schoolers to grandparents, from all over New York and across the United States," and electricians, school teachers, and members of the country's armed services.

Of the 381 people whose accounts were covered under the warrants, 62 were later charged in a disability fraud case, Facebook's deputy general counsel Chris Sonderby wrote in a post on Thursday.

The request from New York is described by the company as the largest it has received, "by a magnitude of more than ten."

The social networking company last Friday asked the appellate division of the New York State Supreme Court to force the government to return the data it has seized and retained.

The government's own investigation confirms "that most of the Facebook user data seized by the Government is irrelevant to the charges alleged, and the search warrants are overbroad and constitutionally defective," the company wrote in the court filing.

After Facebook filed the appeal, the government unsealed the warrants and all court filings, which has enabled Facebook to notify the people whose accounts were affected about the warrants and its ongoing legal efforts, Sonderby wrote.

Facebook's appeal focuses on whether it has the standing to challenge the warrants, whether the warrants, which authorized collection of large amounts of personal information and communications without an "apparent connection to the crimes under investigation, or procedures requiring the return of the seized information" are in violation of the Fourth Amendment, and whether the gag provisions of the warrants violate the Stored Communications Act and the First Amendment.

The trial court had ruled in the negative on these issues, Facebook wrote in the filing. In an order dated Sept. 17 last year, Judge Melissa C. Jackson denied Facebook's motion to quash the 381 search warrants and required Facebook to locate and produce user information.

Facebook claims it has standing to contest the warrants for a number of reasons, including third-party standing that "will avoid diluting the constitutional rights of hundreds of individuals whose personal information has now been seized by the Government without their knowledge."

"The vast scope of the Government's search and seizure here would be unthinkable in the physical world," Facebook wrote in its filing, comparing the demand for all communications and information in 24 broad categories from the 381 targeted accounts as the digital equivalent of seizing everything in someone's home.

"Sometimes 'come back with a warrant' is not enough," wrote digital rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation in a blog post. "The warrant must also conform to constitutional limitations, narrowly seeking evidence of a crime with particularity, based on probable cause."

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Android malware targets South Korean online banking customers

Malicious software that swaps itself for legitimate online banking applications is striking users in South Korea, with thousands of devices infected in the last week, according to a Chinese mobile security company.

Cheetah Mobile, formerly known as Kingsoft Internet Security Software, wrote that the banking malware masquerades as a popular game or tool on third-party Android application markets.

Google checks Android applications in its Play store for malicious behavior, but third-party marketplaces are often rife with malicious applications. Security experts advise caution when using such sources for applications.

If the malicious application is installed, it scans for the official applications of South Korean banks including Nong Hyup, Shinhan, Kookmin, Woori, Hana, Busan and the Korean Federation of Community Credit Cooperatives, Cheetah Mobile wrote.

The malware then displays an alert that states that the online banking application needs to be updated. If the update is approved by a user, the malware deletes the legitimate application and replaces it with a similar looking but malicious copy. More than 2,000 variations of the malware have been detected by Cheetah.

It then asks for the password for the user's security certificate, which is required by the South Korean government in order to access many online services in the country. It also requests a bank account number, passwords and another security number issued to users when they opened an account, Cheetah Mobile wrote.

The malware then falsely alleges there isn't a data connection. When that message is closed by a user, the malware deletes itself from the devices having already stolen all of the information it needs, Cheetah Mobile wrote. The attackers use the information to apply for a new security certificate in order to access the victim's account.

Cheetah Mobile, which makes several security software programs and utilities for Android devices, said it detected between 3,000 to 6,000 infections per day between June 17 and Tuesday.

"This virus is very stubborn and can be hard to remove," it said.

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YouTube launches new studio app, adds features for donations, fan-made subtitles

Makers of YouTube videos will be getting new tools to spruce up their content, including features that will let their fans make donations and submit their own subtitles to the videos.

On Thursday, YouTube announced the updates, which will be rolling out in the coming months. Along with the new features, the site has launched an app, called YouTube Creator Studio, that lets video makers manage their content including do analytics over a mobile device.

The app is already available for Android, and an iOS version will arrive over the next weeks.

A few of the changes YouTube is making will help video makers better engage with the site's community. Users are already donating to videos through third-party crowdfunding platforms such as KickStarter, but YouTube is testing out a new feature that'll let users make donations at anytime.

To make YouTube's content more friendly to an international audience, users can also submit their own subtitled translations. The idea is to help video creators grow their audience through their own fans, according to YouTube.

In terms of video editing, the site is adding sound effects to its audio library, so that video makers can put zombie screens or fighter jet sounds with their content. Video makers will also be able to link to their collaborators, with tags that users can click on.

In addition, YouTube is upgrading the site so that videos can show at 60 frames per second. "Your video game footage with crazy high frame rates will soon look as awesome on YouTube as it does when you're playing," the site said.

YouTube receives over 1 billion unique visits each month. Helping to attract YouTube's audience is the user-generated content coming from popular personalities on the site. Leading "YouTube celebrities" include "PewDiePie" and "Smosh", who have 27 million and 18 million subscribers, respectively.

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'Luuuk' banking malware may have stolen €500,000 in a week

A European bank may have lost as much as €500,000 (US$682,000) in a week earlier this year, according to Kaspersky Lab, which analyzed data on a server used in attacks against online banking users in Italy and Turkey.

In a blog post Wednesday, the Russian security company didn't identify the bank or why it chose to reveal the possible theft six months later. The financial institution has been notified of the discovery, and Kaspersky said is in contact with law enforcement.

On Jan. 20, Kaspersky analysts discovered a command-and-control server for a piece of malware that executed so-called man-in-the-browser attacks on victims' computers. In that type of attack, malware intervenes during an online banking session and can manipulate or steal data.

Two days later, the fraudsters removed all of the "sensitive components" from the server, Kaspersky wrote. That indicates the cybercriminals may have known someone else was looking at it.

The fraud campaign was nicknamed "Luuuk" by Kaspersky after that name appeared in a file path of the server's administrator control panel. It appears the server managed the theft of funds from victims' accounts, automatically transferring the money to the accounts of "mules," or people who agree to receive the funds for a cut and transfer the bulk of the funds onward.

Server logs indicated that as much as €500,000 may have been transferred in a single week, wrote Kaspersky's Global Research and Analysis Team. The data indicated around 190 victims. Analysts also saw on the server descriptions of fraudulent transfers and the IBAN (international bank account number) numbers for victims and money mules.

Kaspersky hasn't seen a sample of the actual malware that was on victims' computers. But data on the server indicated it is similar in functionality to the infamous Zeus banking malware.

The Luuuk malware collected the logins and passwords of victims and one-time passcodes. Since one-time passcodes typically expire in a few minutes, this type of banking malware will use the code to quickly log into the victim's account.

The attackers checked the victim's balance and then conducted several fraudulent transactions automatically, likely "in the background of a legitimate banking session," the company wrote.

There are other indicators that the group is still very active, Kaspersky wrote, although it did not give further details.

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Oculus VR says ZeniMax suit aims to cash in on Facebook acquisition

Oculus VR has accused game publisher ZeniMax Media of attempting to cash in on Facebook's pending acquisition of the wearable virtual reality technology company.

In a court filing challenging ZeniMax's ownership claims in its virtual reality technology, Oculus also cited mail from a former employee of ZeniMax, which said he was concerned that he would be confused as the developer of the Rift virtual reality headset from Oculus.

ZeniMax filed in May a lawsuit against Oculus in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas division for exploiting commercially intellectual property that the games publisher allegedly shared under a non-disclosure agreement with Oculus, which enabled it to improve on its "crude prototype" of a virtual reality headset.

Oculus holds that not a single line of code or any of ZeniMax technology has gone into its products.

"Until the Facebook deal, and the perceived chance for a quick payout, ZeniMax never raised any claim of infringement against Oculus VR, undoubtedly because ZeniMax never has contributed any intellectual property or technology to Oculus VR," Oculus said in the court filing on Wednesday.

In March, Facebook said it had reached a deal to buy Oculus for about US$2 billion.

ZeniMax had never identified any stolen code or technology in any Oculus VR product, although it had received the full source code from Oculus for over a year and a half, Oculus said.

The key to the dispute is the nature of the alleged collaboration from April 2012 between Oculus founder Palmer Luckey, then a video game enthusiast working on a headset, and John Carmack who was technical director for ZeniMax's Texas-based subsidiary, id Software, until he joined Oculus in August 2013.

Carmack is said to have agreed on joining ZeniMax that it would be the author and owner of any copyrightable works that he prepared within the scope of his employment, ZeniMax said in its complaint to the court in May.

Oculus counters that before ZeniMax made any contact with Luckey, he had already demonstrated prototypes of the Rift headset publicly with various virtual reality-specific software and even Rift-specific applications. Luckey met much after the demonstrations with Carmack who was interested in using the Rift prototype, and several other head-mounted devices he had acquired, to conduct demonstrations of his videogame software at the E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) convention in 2012.

Before demonstrations of ZeniMax game "Doom 3: BFG Edition" at the E3 convention, Carmack is said to have been concerned that he would be confused as the creator of the Rift. "I am doing my best to not let anyone mistake the Rift as my work, but I'm sure someone is going to get it confused next week. I am sensitive to the fact that the press has a tendency to over-attribute things to me, because 'genius inventor' is such a convenient story hook," Carmack, a well-regarded games programmer, is said to have written in a mail to Luckey.

ZeniMax could not be immediately reached for comment on Oculus' filing. "Oculus used ZeniMax's hardware and software technology to create a software development kit (SDK) for the Rift and to develop, modify, and tune the Rift hardware," the games publisher alleged in its May complaint. The companies negotiated unsuccessfully up to 2013 the terms of the compensation for the technology and assistance, and ZeniMax claims Oculus never gave it any compensation.

Oculus has asked for a jury trial on all issues.

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Foxconn CEO mocks curved displays on smartphones

The curved displays on new smartphones coming from Korea were the target of a joke by Foxconn Technology Group's CEO, who mocked the products as phones designed to fit the rears of consumers.

"People are talking about, wow, displays that can transform, but they forget that you have to be able to use the device," Terry Gou said at the company's shareholders' meeting on Wednesday.

Both Samsung Electronics and LG have come out with smartphones built with curved screens, but Gou is less than impressed with the technology. The Taiwanese manufacturing giant assembles Apple's iPhone and also competes in building TVs.

Gou recounted visiting the show booth of one of the Korean companies, where he asked the sales reps why the curved displays were needed.

"They explained that if the men want to put a large phone into their jeans, it has to be able to fit their buttocks," he said. "This is a company ranked worldwide number 1, number 2 in displays, and their marketing is saying this."

Gou also dismissed a sales point that the curved phones are easier to hold when making phone calls. "Do you listen to your phone, or do you look at your phone? You look at them. So if you look at them, why do you need a curved screen?" he recounted saying to the sales rep. "If it's a curved screen, then you won't be able to see the display clearly."

It's not the first time Gou has taken a jab at his Korean competitors. He has reportedly vowed to beat Samsung in the display business.

Despite Gou's complaints, some critics are liking the curved displays found on the phones. "The bend in its body actually makes it easier to hold," wrote TechHive of LG's G Flex phone, adding, "It makes the phone feel more 'premium' than it actually is."

Foxconn plans to respond to its rivals with its own smartphone innovations. On Wednesday, Gou said the company was developing one such handset built with a 35-megapixel camera that sits flat on a device's surface. "If you want a 35-megapixel camera on a phone now, you need to buy it as an attachment," he said. "What we are working on will be flat."

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Police turning to mobile malware for monitoring, study says

Governments are increasingly using spyware for mobile devices to monitor targets, raising questions over the possible misuse of such tools, a new study suggests.

The Citizen Lab, part of the Munk School of Global Affairs at the University of Toronto, and Kaspersky Lab both published analyses on Tuesday of a surveillance product called Remote Control System (RCS) from Hacking Team in Italy.

Hacking Team is one of a handful of companies, including the Gamma Group, specializing in what are essentially malicious software programs designed to intercept data but intended for governments and law enforcement.

The Citizen Lab has long expressed concern in other published research over the use of the tools by governments, which it has concluded have been employed to suppress speech and monitor political opponents in the past.

Over time, the cost of the spying toolkits has fallen and they are now within reach of nearly all governments, the Citizen Lab said in its writeup.

"By dramatically lowering the entry cost on invasive and hard-to-trace monitoring, the equipment lowers the cost of targeting political threats for those with access to Hacking Team and Gamma Group toolkits," the group wrote.

The latest research looks into the exploitation techniques for an Android component of RCS and the command-and-control infrastructure behind it.

The Citizen Lab identified a suspicious Android APK (application installation package) that was a functional copy of the news application "Qatif Today" intended for people in Saudi Arabia. A version of it had been modified to also deliver a payload created by Hacking Team.

A link to what appeared to the malicious APK was tweeted, which led to a Dropbox file that is now gone, The Citizen Lab wrote. If installed, the Hacking Team module requests permissions such as reading and writing SMSes, monitoring GPS location and the ability to process calls.

The Citizen Lab found other Android Hacking Team Android implants that tried to access local stores of chats in applications such as Facebook, Viber, Skype, Line and QQ.

A source leaked to The Citizen Lab a group of documents that describes how the RCS works, giving the research group broad insight into how tracking targets works. The group cautioned the documents have not been verified, but the information did not contradict its own RCS research.

Kaspersky Lab wrote on its blog that it uncovered "a huge infrastructure that is used to control the RCS malware implants."

Kaspersky scanned the entire IPV4 Internet address space, using a special "fingerprinting" method it developed that can identify RCS command-and-control servers.

It found 64 RCS command-and-control servers in the U.S., the most of any country, followed by 49 in Kazakhstan, 35 in Ecuador and 24 in the U.K. Other countries with double-digit numbers of control servers included Canada, China and Colombia.

Some of the IP addresses connected with those servers appeared to be government owned, Kaspersky said. It's unlikely law enforcement agencies would locate those command servers in other countries "in order to avoid cross-border legal problems and the seizure of servers," the company wrote.

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Montana data breach exposed 1.3 million records

Up to 1.3 million records, including health care and bank account information, may have been exposed after a server at Montana's public health department was hacked in May, the state said Tuesday.

The server, which belonged to the Department of Public Health and Human Services, was shut down on May 22, a week after suspicious activity was noticed and an independent forensic investigation began, according to a news release.

The state said it has no knowledge if data on the server was inappropriately used or accessed. The data was backed up.

The server held information such as names, addresses, birth dates and Social Security numbers for services citizens had applied for or received. For some people, the information may have included data on health assessments, diagnoses, treatment, health condition, prescriptions and insurance, the state said.

Birth and death records, part of the state's Vital Statistics database, were also on the server.

Contractors as well as current and former employees of the department may have been affected. The server contained their names, addresses, birth dates, Social Security numbers along with bank account information and dates of service, the state said.

Those affected are being contacted by the department and will be offered free credit monitoring, according to a statement.

Montana had upgraded its property insurance policy last year to include coverage for data security incidents. The US$2 million policy will cover costs such as setting up a toll-free help line, free credit monitoring and mailing notification letters, the state said.

The policy should cover the "majority" of costs for this incident, it said.

The state said it has since restored the affected systems and added additional security software "to better protect sensitive information on existing servers."

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Microsoft fixes Exchange Online outage after almost 9 hours

Microsoft has finally fixed an Exchange Online outage that left affected users without access to email for almost nine hours on Tuesday, prompting many to vent their frustration online as they struggled to get their work done.

The company hasn't said how many customers were impacted, but judging by the volume of complaints posted in discussion forums and social media sites, it must have hit a substantial number of users.

Plus, the length of the outage, and the fact that it struck during U.S. work hours, makes it a significant and embarrassing one for Microsoft, which is locked in a fight with Google in the cloud communication and collaboration software market.

Exchange Online is sold as a standalone service, and also as a component of Office 365, Microsoft's cloud communication and collaboration suite for businesses, schools, government agencies and nonprofit organizations.

In an update posted in page 15 of a discussion thread in the Office 365 support forum, a Microsoft representative declared that the service had been restored around 6 p.m. U.S. Eastern Time. The outage hit shortly after 9 a.m.

"Investigation determined that a portion of the networking infrastructure entered into a degraded state. Engineers made configuration changes on the affected capacity to remediate end-user impact," wrote the Microsoft support official, identified as David Zhang.

A common theme among affected users who complained online was that Microsoft was slow to acknowledge the outage and didn't communicate well with customers. Many felt that the Office 365 status dashboard wasn't updated quickly enough to reflect the problem.

A good sample of these complaints is encapsulated in the reactions to this update Microsoft posted to the Office 365 Twitter account at one point during the afternoon.

Outages such as this one create difficult situations for IT departments whose companies have shut down their on-premises servers and switched to vendor-hosted cloud services like Office 365. In these situations, IT pros have little to no control over the outage and yet have to field queries and complaints from their angry users.

Inevitably, these types of outages also trigger second-guessing of the decision to move to cloud services and give up the inherent control of running one's own servers for email and other applications. This second-guessing is usually directed at the high-level IT executive who pushed for the move to the cloud, like CIOs, CTOs and IT managers.

Office 365 comes in a variety of editions that vary in price and in the applications and tools they include. Most Office 365 editions come with Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online and OneDrive for Business, and some also include the full-featured Office productivity app suite.

The basic version of Office 365 for Education, called A2, is free, while the most sophisticated version for businesses, Office 365 Enterprise E4, costs $22 per user, per month and includes a 99.9 percent uptime guarantee.

A Microsoft spokeswoman contacted via email acknowledged the problem, but didn't provide details about the number of customers affected.

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Google tests domain registration service

If you fancy yourself as a .guru or any other newfangled Internet address, Google wants you to try out its new domain name registration service.

The search giant quietly launched Google Domains on Monday as an invite-only beta service. It's being billed as an easy way to set up an address on the Web with simple management tools.

Until now, Google has told people looking to register that it "doesn't register or host domain names." It referred them to partner companies including GoDaddy and eNom.

Google Domains, though, has features that might make people think twice before going with other registration services. For instance, Google will cover the cost for private registration—that is, keeping your name, address and contact information from the public eye.

The service also includes branded email, such as you@your_company.com, and forwarding to other domains or websites.

Google is billing its vast Internet infrastructure as another perk, promising quick and reliable links between the domain and its websites.

The move represents competition for GoDaddy, the world's largest domain name registrar with over 57 million domains under its management. The registrar has privacy protection starting from US$7.99 per domain and email services from $4.99 a month.

The company filed for an IPO of $100 million earlier this month.

Google Domains will also give users up to 100 subdomains to customize websites, phone support and a variety of management tools.

The Google Domains site does not list the prices for the new service, and asks potential users to apply for a trial code. It does have a page showing a photo, however, in which "registration" for one year is $12. GoDaddy offers discounted one-year registrations with .com endings from about $8.

Google did not immediately reply to a request for more information.

The new service follows the move last year by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) to introduce up to 1,400 new generic top-level domains from 22 including the ubiquitous .com, .net and .org.

The new names include endings such as .rentals, .club, .reviews, .photography and .guru, which has proven popular. Google is listed by ICANN as an accredited registrar for some top-level domain names such as .biz, .com, .info, .name, .net, .org and .pro.

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Nest thermostat to work with wearables, appliances, and even your car

It's all coming together—the company that started by connecting your thermostat is now poised to connect your home. Nest on Monday announced its Nest Developer Program, which will allow other companies to certify products with a "Works with Nest" label.

Soon the Nest will be able to boss around an entire Internet of Things.

The program is designed to let Nest work in concert with other devices. For example, your connected Mercedes-Benz can let your Nest know you're on the way home, which could trigger the thermostat to adjust the temperature. Actually, you can do that today with an IFTTT recipe that uses your iOS or Android phone's location services, but having the car do it for you is nice too.

Other announced integrations include Jawbone, letting your UP24 tell your thermostat you've woken up, before your feet have even hit the floor. LIFX bulbs can mimic an occupied house when you are away by turning lights on and off. And Whirlpool is teaming with participating energy providers' Rush Hour Rewards program to save you money. Your energy company tells the Nest when the demand for power is high, and the Nest tells your Whirlpool washer and dryer to hold off during that time.

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US FAA outlines restrictions for model aircraft in wake of reckless use

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration on Monday interpreted existing rules to prohibit hobbyists' model aircraft from flying within 5 miles (8 kilometers) of an airport without clearance from the airport or ground control.

The guidance follows incidents involving the reckless use of unmanned model aircraft near airports and involving large crowds of people, FAA said. The U.S. National Park Service last week banned the operation of drones amidst concerns about the safety of people and harassment of animals.

Model aircraft hobbyists have to ensure that the aircraft is visible to the operator at all times without viewing aids like binoculars, and is not used for commercial purposes, the FAA said. The aircraft should not weigh more than 55 pounds (25 kilograms), including the weight of the payload and fuel, unless it's certified by an aeromodeling community-based organization

The FAA also defended its right to set rules in a notice that went into effect on Monday and is open for public comment for 30 days.

The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 established in section 336 a special rule for model aircraft, which prohibited the agency from making any rule or regulation regarding a model aircraft, or an aircraft being developed as a model aircraft, if the aircraft meets statutory requirements such as the maximum weight and its use exclusively for hobby or recreational purposes.

The FAA holds the rulemaking prohibition does not apply in the case of general rules that it may issue or modify that apply to all aircraft, such as rules addressing the use of airspace for safety or security reasons. "The statute does not require FAA to exempt model aircraft from those rules because those rules are not specifically regarding model aircraft," it said in the notice.

If a model aircraft operator endangers the safety of the National Airspace System, the FAA has the authority to take enforcement action against the operators for the safety violations, FAA said.

Rules addressing operation of the aircraft may, for example, include prohibitions on careless or reckless operation and dropping objects so as to create a hazard to persons or property.

The agency also interpreted existing statutes to rule out the use of hobbyist and recreational model aircraft for purposes such as photographing a property or event to sell the photos to someone else, or delivering packages to people for a fee.

The FAA said earlier this month it is considering exemptions that will allow the use of commercial drones for filming movies, after seven aerial photo and video production companies asked for regulatory exemptions to use unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) for the film and television industry. Amazon.com and other companies have said that they plan to use drones for commercial purposes such as delivery of packages.

An administrative law judge of the National Transportation Safety Board ruled that the classification of UAS does not appear in the Federal Aviation Regulations, raising questions whether the FAA has the authority to set rules for them.

Ruling in the case of a photographer Raphael Pirker, who was fined US$10,000 by the FAA in October 2011 for allegedly flying recklessly a powered glider aircraft, Judge Patrick G. Geraghty ruled in March that existing policy regarding the commercial use of drones, "cannot be considered as establishing a rule or enforceable regulation." The FAA has appealed the ruling before the full National Transportation Safety Board, which has the effect of staying the decision until the board rules.

The FAA is required by U.S. Congress to frame a "safe integration" plan for the commercial use of UAS by Sept. 30, 2015. The agency said in February that it expected to publish a proposed rule for small UAS of under about 55 pounds this year. "That proposed rule will likely include provisions for commercial operations," it said. Model aircraft are included under UAS in the 2012 Act.

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Nvidia abandons 64-bit Denver chip for servers

Nvidia has cancelled plans to develop a 64-bit CPU processor for servers, three years after it said it would build such a chip.

"That's not something we're doing today," said Ian Buck, vice president of accelerated computing at Nvidia.

The company is instead focusing its latest 64-bit Tegra chips on mobile and embedded devices, Buck said.

Nvidia in 2011 announced a 64-bit ARM-based chip called Project Denver, which would also go into mobile devices, PCs and servers. The company said it was looking to pair Tegra chips with GPUs in servers, but those plans haven't seen the light of day. The latest Tegra K1 chip, which includes a 64-bit CPU and will ship later this year, is for smartphones, tablets, cars and other products.

The company has said the mobile K1 chips could make it to microservers, but the company won't develop a specialized server CPU. The company's exit leaves a field of only four ARM server chip makers: Advanced Micro Devices, AppliedMicro, Broadcom and Cavium.

Nvidia, known for its graphics cards, is instead focusing on building Tesla high-performance GPUs for ARM servers.

"We should continue to focus on building great GPUs for them," Buck said.

Interest in ARM servers is growing for web hosting and cloud computing, and also as a low-power alternative to the dominant x86 servers. But there is also skepticism around ARM servers, which are still largely being tested. The platform software stack has not matured yet, and ARM server pioneer Calxeda shut down late last year following lack of funds, raising questions about the viability of such products.

AMD is betting its future in servers on ARM chips, while AppliedMicro is taking a cautious approach, saying its first few chips will help the company gauge interest in ARM servers.

Only a handful of 32-bit ARM servers are available today from vendors like Boston Ltd. and Mitac. The first 64-bit ARM servers from Cirrascale and E4 Engineering will ship later this year, with servers running AppliedMicro's 64-bit processors and Nvidia's Tesla graphics cards. The companies did not provide pricing information.

Servers with Nvidia's Tegra chips have been developed in the past. Barcelona Supercomputing Center in Spain built supercomputers based on Tegra 2 and 3 to test the energy efficiency of ARM chips. However, that effort was supplanted by a supercomputer running ARM-based Exynos smartphone chips from Samsung.

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SC500: China wins a slowing supercomputer race

China continues to dominate the high end of the Top500 list of the world's most powerful supercomputers, even as the growth of the computing power on the list seems to be stagnating.

Tianhe-2, run by China's National University of Defense Technology, clocked 33.86 Pflop/s (quadrillions of calculations per second) for the 43rd edition of the TOP500, released Monday at the International Supercomputing Conference in Leipzig, Germany.

The runner-up in this twice-yearly ranking came in at only half the speed: The U.S. Energy Department's Titan, a Cray XK7 machine at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, tested out at 17.59 Pflop/s.

Supercomputers perform tasks larger than any single server could handle, such as large-scale calculations for physics research, forecasting the weather, or modeling in high fidelity the design of complex machinery such as airplanes.

This is the third round of the Top500 in which Tianhe-2 has topped the list since its surprise debut a year ago.

The Top 500 list of supercomputers was started in June 1993 to compare the performance of the most powerful computers and show the growth of supercomputing. Participation is voluntary and requires entrants to run the Linpack benchmark, which measures how quickly a system can solve a dense series of linear equations.

Tianhe-2's continued run on the top of the supercomputing chart is due at least in part to the sluggish growth of the world's top supercomputers. The machine offered no faster performance than it did a year ago, and nine of the 10 machines on the top of the list also were on previous lists.

Only a new Cray XC30, installed at an undisclosed U.S. government site, made a dent near the top, charting in the 10th position with 3.14 Pflop/s.

Taken together, all 500 systems would produce 274 Pflop/s in supercomputing power, compared with 250 Pflop/s six months ago and 223 Pflop/s in June 2013.

The Top 500 list is compiled by supercomputing experts at the University of Mannheim, Germany; the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; and the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

In addition to ranking supercomputers in terms of Linpack performance, the Top500 also provides insights into the latest ways in which these gargantuan machines are being built.

For example, more supercomputers are using accelerators and co-processors, in addition to the regular processors, to carry out specialized tasks. On this list, 62 systems contained co-processors, up from 53 on the last list in November. Forty-four of these systems use Nvidia co-processors and 17 use Intel Xeon Phi chips.

Despite the victorious Tianhe-2, China still trails behind the U.S. in terms of the number of systems in the Top 500, though it is making gains. China has 76 computers on this list, up from 63 in November. The number of U.S. systems on the current list has shrunk to 233, down from 265 in November.

Intel continues to be the dominant processor provider for these large systems. About 85 percent of the systems on the list use Intel, compared with 8 percent of the systems that use IBM Power processors and 6 percent running AMD Opterons.

Hewlett-Packard continues to be the most widely used supercomputer vendor, having delivered 197 systems on the list, above IBM's 164 systems and Cray's 48 systems.

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Looking beyond iPhone, ARM 64-bit chips get into servers with GPUs

Breaking from the cocoon of the iPhone 5S, 64-bit ARM processors will start delivering breakthrough performance in servers, aided by graphics cards used in some of the world's fastest computers.

The first high-performance servers with ARM 64-bit processors have been announced with Nvidia's Tesla graphics cards, which is also in the U.S. Department of Energy's Titan, the world's second fastest supercomputer. The servers from Cirrascale, E4 Computer and Eurotech were announced at the International Supercomputing Conference in Leipzig, Germany.

The first 64-bit ARM processor was used by Apple in the iPhone 5S, which was introduced last year. No 64-bit ARM products have been announced since, but there is a growing interest in low-power ARM servers to process lightweight tasks such as responding to search and social networking requests.

Hewlett-Packard, Dell and others have plans to ship 64-bit ARM servers that could help cut electric bills in data centers. ARM processors alone cannot deliver the horsepower necessary for complex scientific and math calculations, while GPUs can speed up such tasks.

There is an interest in ARM processors combined with GPUs in research areas like protein folding, drug discovery and atomic simulations, said Ian Buck, vice president of accelerated computing at Nvidia.

"They now have an alternative than x86 servers, they can validate more choice," Buck said.

Most supercomputers today use processors from Intel or Advanced Micro Devices based on the x86 microarchitecture, which is also in PCs. But based on historic trends, researchers have argued that smartphone chips could ultimately replace the more expensive and power-hungry x86 server processors in supercomputers.

The first ARM servers from Cirrascale and E4 Engineering will ship later this year. The Cirrascale RM1905D and the E4 EK003 have eight-core AppliedMicro X-Gene processors and Tesla K20 GPUs, with support for up to DDR3 memory, 10-gigabit ethernet and PCI-Express 3.0. The systems come with 400 watt power supplies. The Cirrascale 1U server is for cloud and high-performance applications, while the E4 Engineering 3U server is for Web computing, analytics, video rendering and science applications. Configuration details for Eurotech's ARM server was not available, but it will have liquid cooling, according to Nvidia.

For Nvidia, ARM servers represent a big opportunity to sell its graphics cards. The Tesla GPUs are already compatible with x86 chips and IBM's Power processors, and support for ARM-based chips is the next logical step, Buck said.

"There are lot of interest in ARM64," Buck said.

AppliedMicro's X-Gene chip is based on its proprietary chip design, and has server features such as error correction and RAS (reliability, availability and serviceability), which are typically not available in ARM mobile chips. The X-Gene also has I/O, networking and signal-processing components.

But ARM servers lack software support as most server applications are written for x86 chips. But Hadoop, OpenStack and the LAMP stack already support ARM, and native Java support is coming in 2015.

Nvidia at ISC is also announcing CUDA 6.5, a set of proprietary parallel programming tools that can harness the joint computing power of CPUs and GPUs. CUDA 6.5 adds support for ARM processors.

Beyond AppliedMicro, Nvidia is keeping a close watch on other ARM-based server chip makers such as Broadcom and Cavium, Buck said. He hinted that GPU support could also come for those chips.

Nvidia faces competition from AMD, which is developing an ARM server processor and sells graphics processors such as FirePro for the supercomputing space. Nvidia lacks a CPU specifically for servers and is not developing one, Buck said.

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Report: Samsung will parade an Android Wear smartwatch at Google I/O

If Samsung keeps exploring smartwatch operating systems with such reckless abandon, it might very well release a wearable running iOS.

I kid, of course. But a late Friday report from CNET says Samsung will show off a smartwatch running the Android Wear OS at Google's I/O conference next week. Such a move would signal a dramatic about-face in Samsung's smartwatch strategy. In 2013, the company released the Android-based Galaxy Gear, but unceremoniously dropped Google and switched to the Tizen OS for its Gear 2 wearables this April.

And now it appears Samsung is joining smaller mobile manufacturers LG and Motorola in their support for Android Wear. The CNET report even references an unnamed source who says Samsung's Android Wear device could be a freebie gift for every I/O attendee. The smart money has always been on the LG G Watch as the headlining goodie bag giveaway for 2014 attendees, so if Samsung wins that honor, it will be a stunner.

When Android Wear was announced and began enchanting the world with its promises of Google Now magic strapped to one's wrist, Samsung remained coy. The company didn't outright dismiss the possibility of an Android Wear watch, but reaffirmed its commitment to Tizen. And that position more or less continues today. According to CNET, Samsung wouldn't comment on this Google I/O news, but said it is "committed to relentless innovation and new products are always in development."

Translation: We will keep developing smartwatches until we land on one that people like.

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Chinese site in signal-jammer sting could pay record $34.9M FCC fine

A Chinese electronics vendor accused of selling signal jammers to U.S. consumers could end up leading the market in one dubious measure: the largest fine ever imposed by the Federal Communications Commission.

The agency wants to fine CTS Technology US$34,912,500 for allegedly marketing 285 models of jammers over more than two years. CTS boldly—and falsely—claimed that some of its jammers were approved by the FCC, according to the agency's enforcement action released Thursday. Conveniently, CTS' product detail pages also include a button to "report suspicious activity."

The proposed fine, which would be bigger than any the FCC has levied for anti-competitive behavior, not airing children's shows, or a wardrobe malfunction, comes from adding up the maximum fines for each model of jammer the company allegedly sold in the U.S. The agency also ordered CTS, based in Shenzhen, China, to stop marketing illegal jammers to U.S. consumers and identify the buyer of each jammer it sold in the U.S.

A warning against operating signal jammers, as posted on the FCC website.

Selling, buying or using a wireless signal jammer is illegal in the U.S. for everyone except law enforcement agencies. They're a direct danger to public safety because they can prevent citizens from making 911 calls and first responders from communicating in emergencies, the FCC says. It regularly cracks down on jammer sellers and users. But CTS so far leads the pack in proposed punishment, with the FCC applying the maximum fine for each jammer model the company allegedly marketed.

There are numerous jammers offered on the CTS site, ranging in size from handheld to a rolling suitcase. One handheld model, made in Guangdong, China, and priced at US$240, is advertised as having a range of 20 meters, "ideal for a large room, restaurant, cinema ... Or whilst having a conversation and you want to eliminate others from using mobile telephones."

A larger, stationary model with eight antennas is said to cover "all of the popular wireless RF signals including, 2G/3G/4G mobile phone, WiFi Bluetooth, UHF, VHF, GPS, LoJack, remote control and so on." According to CTS, it is sourced from Christmas Island, an Australian territory in the Indian Ocean.

CTS has 30 days to respond to the allegations or pay the $34.9 million. In past actions against violators based overseas, the FCC has used procedures under the Hague Service Convention, a 1965 multilateral treaty.

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The EFF wants to improve your privacy by making your Wi-Fi public

Conventional wisdom dictates that to maintain your security and privacy, you should encrypt your Wi-Fi network. But what if the conventional wisdom is wrong? The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) argues that partially opening up your home Wi-Fi network could actually enhance your privacy, and is working on a tool to make it easier to do so.

According to Wired, the EFF will release free firmware for Wi-Fi routers that will "let you share a portion of your Wi-Fi network, password-free, with anyone nearby." The software, called "Open Wireless Router," is part of the EFF's OpenWireless.org initiative, which aims to make free wireless Internet as ubiquitous as possible.

The idea here is that by opening up your network to strangers, not only are you being a good neighbor, but traffic on your network can't necessarily be tracked back to you—a potential boon for those for whom privacy is sacrosanct. 

But opening your Wi-Fi network to strangers does have its risks. It can allow anyone to eat up your bandwidth, and in some cases, it can lead to legal headaches. Wired points to a man in Buffalo, New York, who was suspected of downloading child pornography after his neighbor used his open Wi-Fi network for these illicit purposes. 

The EFF's OpenWireless.org site.

To mitigate these concerns, the Open Wireless Router firmware will cap public access to as little as 5 percent of your bandwidth. This way, you can allow someone to check Gmail from your Wi-Fi, for example, while discouraging them from downloading a multi-gigabyte file.

As for the latter issue, the OpenWireless.org team says it plans to "integrate an option to route guest traffic over the anonymity software Tor or a VPN that ties it to a different IP address" in a future version of the firmware, Wired reports.

The EFF will officially release the Open Wireless Router firmware at next month's Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE) conference.

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Twitter keeps sending texts to recycled phone numbers, lawsuit says

Promotional texts and other messages from Twitter are fine if you consent to them, but some are going out to old phone numbers that have been around the block, according to a new lawsuit.

A Massachusetts woman alleges that the social network is sending unsolicited texts via SMS (Short Message Service) to recycled phone numbers. People who have never used Twitter or have not opted into receiving texts from the company are getting messages just because their number was previously used by someone who may have consented. She wants to turn her lawsuit into a class action for other consumers like her.

Around the time that Beverly Nunes, of Taunton, Massachusetts, got a new phone last November, she started getting promotional texts several times per day from "40404," a Twitter SMS short code, according to the complaint. "There's a new Swagcode out!" one message read, referring to virtual currency that could be redeemed for retail items or gift cards.

Nunes never had a Twitter account, according to the filing.

The suit, filed Thursday in federal court in San Francisco, may point to a larger issue as Internet companies try to grow their businesses using mobile messaging. Twitter makes the bulk of its advertising revenue from mobile devices, and the company is pushing hard to get more mobile users.

The suit claims Twitter automatically sends unsolicited messages to people without verifying that they have actually opted into the messages. "Twitter simply treats the new recycled cellular telephone number owner as if he or she were the previous owner," it says.

The suit also alleges that Twitter sends SMS texts to people who have expressly opted out of receiving them.

Those practices, the suit alleges, violate the U.S. Telephone Consumer Protection Act, which prohibits companies from sending automated texts to mobile phones without first receiving permission. Depending on what data plan they have, consumers may have to pay for those unwanted texts.

The suit seeks US$500 in damages for each violation of the TCPA.

John Jacobs, the lead attorney for Nunes, said the claims laid out in the suit are a substantial problem within the tech industry that would not be hard to fix. Companies such as Infutor and NextMark can identify disconnected telephone numbers before they're recycled, but Twitter does not use their services, according to the filing.

Nunes, the plaintiff, could not be immediately reached for comment. Twitter did not immediately respond to comment.

But Mike Mothner, founder and CEO at Wpromote, a digital marketing agency, said the blame belongs to both the carrier and the Internet company. "The carrier shouldn't sell consumers' numbers—that's an issue of privacy and customer service," he said.

Twitter can capture people's cellphone numbers under a variety of circumstances. People can sign up for the service via SMS, and tweet via text message. Twitter also offers two-factor login using cellphone numbers.

In 2010 Twitter acquired Cloudhopper to scale its SMS service by connecting directly to mobile carrier networks.

Nunes may not have a case against Twitter. Yahoo was hit with a similar suit last year, but a judge recently threw it out on the grounds that Yahoo didn't use an automated redialer to transmit its text messages.

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Just My Type: Find the Device that Fits Your Life

[ This sponsored article was written by IDG Creative Lab, a partner of PCWorld, and not by PCWorld's editorial staff. ]

None of us is a one-dimensional cutout. We work, we play, we travel, we have a family, hobbies and goals. We travel to new places, meet new people, find new jobs, and pick up new interests. For some of us, nothing is more important than spending time with the family; for others, adventure comes first.

Meanwhile, technology is blurring the lines between laptop, tablet, and desktop, making it that much easier to find a device that fits your life. Whatever inspires you, there's something out there that can turn that inspiration into reality.

These empowering devices all have something in common, and it's something you'll probably never see: a powerful Intel processor. Intel's leading-edge technology lets you run the apps, play the games, and do the work you want to do without interruption. And because that technology prioritizes power-efficiency, you'll be able to work, play, and communicate for hours.

Here's a helpful guide to the many portable devices that Intel powers, broken down into four categories keyed to your needs: Smaller, lightweight devices; devices that shine in entertaining the family; no-compromise 2 in 1 devices that combine the best features of tablets and laptops; and expansive yet portable All-in-One units.

Grab 'n Go: Portable Gadgets fit for the Busy Traveler

You're on the move and rely on your device for a host of practical purposes, but that doesn't mean you can't carve out a bit of fun time, too. Delight yourself with a digital doodle, read a chapter of that eBook, or play a game. These tablets are so light you'll barely notice that you've got one of them tucked in your purse or pocket. And don't worry about running out of juice: the Intel processors on these tablets sip power slowly, so you might not have to slow down to look for a place to plug in. What's more, the power of Intel Inside® gives these devices advanced capabilities – like super-smooth full-quality video and blazing fast performance – that belie their small size.

Here are the Intel-powered tablet devices that fit into your active lifestyle:

• 

  Asus VivoTab™ Note 8

  The Asus VivoTab^™ Note 8 weighs in at less than one pound and sells for $299. Its 8-inch touchscreen teams up with a Wacom stylus to help you sketch out detailed drawings of your surroundings, sketch your route out on a map, or save a handwritten note. The Asus VivoTab runs Windows 8.1 on a quad-core Intel® Atom™ processor, so it brings plenty of power packed into its very slim profile.

• 

  HP 7

  The HP 7" Tablet runs on Jelly Bean, a fresh version of the user-friendly Android operating system that gives you access to the thousands of apps available in the Google Play app store, including games, productivity tools, and photography aids. This well-built little tablet weighs in at just over 13 ounces, so it's always ready to slip into a bag and go. You can buy it for $99.

• 

  Dell Venue 7

  The Dell Venue 7 is just 0.5 mm thick and feather light. Lay it on your lap and relax with your favorite Android games (it too runs on Jelly Bean), or drop it in your bag and get going. If you see a sight worth remembering, snap amazing photos and video with the rear-facing 3MP camera. Can't wait to share those pics? The Dell Venue 7 (starting at just $149.99) makes it easy to connect with your favorite social media sites.

• 

  Iconia A1 830

  Didn't get a seat on the train? Even if you're standing, the light, compact Acer Iconia A1 830 is easy to hold with one hand, and its bright 7.9-inch screen is ideal for reading emails or ebooks on the go. Its sturdy, two-tone aluminum body is both easy on the eyes and adds to its durability. And the price – only $159.99 – makes it easy on your budget as well.

• 

  Dell Venue 8 Pro

  Getting real work done when you're on the go is difficult – and that's where the Dell Venue 8 Pro comes in. It's an affordable 8-inch tablet running full versions of Windows 8.1 and Microsoft Office. When projects start piling up, you can expand your storage capacity with support for MicroSD, SDHC, and SDXC cards. An optional external keyboard and integrated case enables easy, laptop-style typing when opened and protects the screen when it's closed. Plus, the Dell Venue 8 Pro also boasts a battery that will last the full duration of a cross-country flight with a few hours to spare. The 32 GB model sells for $249.99.

Entertain the whole family: Devices that brighten the day for users both young and old

You've got a lot on your mind. Your job, your bills, your budget, your next dentist appointment. Enough! Remember to enjoy your downtime, and your family! The right device helps you entertain the whole crew whether you're gathered in the living room, camping in the woods, or cramped on an airplane. Create a family album together, or play a digital version of a classic board game. Or gather the clan and journey into the wilderness, and teach the kids how to recognize the constellations with any number of free or low-cost astronomy apps. And remember to snap plenty of pics along the way, especially at those big events like graduations and weddings.

Here are some of the best bets for keeping everyone entertained and making sure your proudest moments are preserved forever:

• 

  Toshiba Encore 8

  An ideal way to get great shots at any event is with the dual cameras you'll find on the Toshiba Encore 8 – one facing front, of course, and another facing backwards to snap selfies. The Toshiba Encore is equipped with numerous ports, including HDMI, which will allow you to stream that graduation video to your television. And with up to 14 hours of battery life, you'll be able to encore that video all night. You can buy it for $299.99.

• 

  ASUS MeMOPad FHD 10

  Watching a good movie can make a long airplane ride a lot more pleasant, but the choices on the airlines tend to be mighty bland, and the less said about screens on airplanes the better. So take your favorite movies or shows with you. The sophisticated graphics capabilities built into the Intel Atom processors mean that a tablet like the ASUS MeMOPad FHD 10 can deliver smooth, vivid visuals and it sells for just under $340. And thanks to the ASUS MeMOPad's 178-degree viewing angle, even family members sitting next to you can enjoy the show.

• 

  Lenovo Miix 2

  Staying in touch, even when you're on vacation, is a necessity. And a great way to do that is through video chat. But video chat can be awkward unless you've got the right tool, and that's where the Lenovo Miix 2 8" tablet ($207.99 )really shines. Its integrated Web cam offers up to 8 megapixels of quality video. With 802.11 b/g/n WiFi and Bluetooth® 4.0, you'll be able to stay connected almost anywhere. Plus, it supports multiple user logins with facial recognition, allowing access for the entire family without worrying about security.

Maximum Flexibility: 2 in 1 devices that keep you cooking almost anywhere

Whether they're burning the midnight oil for an important client or pulling an all-nighter to prepare for a big exam, professionals and students both need plenty of power and easy portability. Limiting your load to a slim tablet saves space in your bag, but you can't always tap out complex ideas on a touchscreen. Having a full-blown laptop with a comfortable keyboard is essential for being as productive as you can be. Not to mention all the game breaks that you take to recharge your batteries. How are you going to get the most out of your games without the option to use a keyboard, mouse, and other accessories? All things considered, you belong where tablet meets laptop.

Here are some flexible 2 in 1 devices that can keep you in the game:

• 

  Microsoft Surface Pro 2

  With a next-gen Intel® Core™ i5 processor providing ultra fast performance, there's not much the Microsoft Surface Pro 2 can't do. Its cover converts to a comfortable keyboard when you want to use your Surface like a laptop. Fold the cover back for a light yet powerful tablet perfect for watching videos. Laptop or tablet, the Microsoft Surface Pro runs all the familiar Windows applications and has a bevy of useful ports, including a full-size USB 3.0 port, mini DisplayPort, and microSD card reader. But there's more to the Surface than work. Its lightweight frame and 8 hours of battery life mean you can pack it for your next trip and relax with movies, games, and photos from coast to coast. The Surface Pro 2 starts at $899.

• 

  HP Pavilion x360

  Use the HP Pavilion x360 as a notebook to work, then rotate it into a stand so the whole gang can check out a video, or convert it into a tent configuration to play a game. And when you're on the go, the HP Pavilion becomes a capable, easy-to-carry tablet. For all its power, this system weighs just 3.08 pounds and still manages to blast out big sound with Beats Audio – a great feature at the pool or a backyard barbecue. And students stranded far from home will love the TrueVision HD Webcam, which is almost as good as being there with the family. It starts at $399.99.

• 

  Lenovo Yoga 2

  On the way to work the Lenovo Yoga 2 is a tablet, the ideal way to plug into your favorites news site or read a report. At work or at school, it's a laptop, ready to help you crank out reports or edit videos – and that's just the half of it. Its 10-point multitouch display flips back 360-degrees to offer two more ways to use it: as a stand or a tent. The 11-inch model of the Yoga 2 sells for $499; the 13-inch version for $999.

• 

  HP Split X2

  The HP Split x2 ($799.99) combines the portability of a tablet with the power and convenience of a laptop. Thanks to the uniquely designed hinge, you can switch from keyboard-typing to tablet-swiping in an instant. Whether being angled as a notebook or passed around as a tablet, the 13.3-inch HD touchscreen display delivers crisp, vibrant images, so it's the ideal platform for catching up on your favorite shows in your downtime.

• 

  Acer Aspire R7

  If you're a student, you're no stranger to limited funds. Should you buy a sound system, since you can't live without your tunes, or spring for a decent laptop? The Acer Aspire R7-572 addresses both needs. It offers superb sound thanks to four speakers enhanced with Dolby Home Theater v4 software. Along with the power you'd expect in a serious laptop, the Acer Aspire offers an innovative design that lets you position the screen any number of ways. Leave it upright for ordinary typing and browsing, or fold it down so it's nearly parallel to the tabletop and use it as a drawing pad. You can buy it for $899.99.

Go All-In-One: More Power, More Capabilities, Less Clutter

You've got a big imagination and even bigger responsibilities, and you can't funnel it all into a compact device. You need an expansive screen to fully immerse yourself into projects, and nothing less will do. An All-in-One PC packages the performance of a complete desktop system into a self-contained, powerful unit. With the PC and the monitor combined and wireless accessories included, there are no cords to clutter your desk. Working as part of a team? The large, adjustable screens make it easy for everyone to gather around your desk and have a good view of your latest edit of a photo or reimagined layout of a marketing brochure. And don't forget: These eye-catching systems make a great home media center.

 

Here are the All-in-One devices that empower your high-concept, high-res endeavors: 

• 

  Dell XPS 18

  The Dell XPS 18 ($1399.99) can be as powerful as you want it to be. For CAD programs or playing high-end multi-player games, opt for Intel's top-of-the-line Core i7 processor and load the system with 8GB of memory and half a terabyte of storage. Use the expansive touch screen to control your apps with the flick of a finger, or work with the wireless mouse and keyboard that come standard. Because the screen is a roomy 18.4 inches you'll be able to work in multiple windows without feeling cramped, and jobs like photo editing and mechanical design are eye-strain-free.

• 

  Lenovo Flex 20

  Flip the Lenovo IdeaCenter Flex 20 over and lay it flat on the table, then gather your team to show them the schematics of a new machine. Since the Lenovo Flex 20 has a responsive, 19.5-inch touchscreen, they can examine and interact with your work with their hands, right there on the screen. And serious gamers can add optional accessories – including a joystick, striker, and e-dice – to make those games even more fun. It starts at just $779 and shipping is free when you buy direct from Lenovo.

The 16 systems in this guide have a lot to offer – whether you want them for work, for play, for family, or all three. And because they all feature processors from Intel, you can count on them to have the power and the capabilities you need no matter where your day, or your lifestyle, takes you.

[ This sponsored article was written by IDG Creative Lab, a partner of PCWorld, and not by PCWorld's editorial staff. ]

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