Intel shrinks RealSense camera, targets smartphones

Intel plans to cut the fat from its RealSense 3D camera so that it can fit the device on a smartphone.

The company's CEO Brian Krzanich showed off Wednesday in Shenzhen, China a 6-inch prototype phone built with the new camera, which is about half the size of the older version. The company plans to start deploying the technology this year.

The U.S. chipmaker has been wanting to bring RealSense to PCs and tablets, but with the smaller size it can also deliver it to smartphones, Krzanich said. Devices built with the 3D camera could offer gesture control like Microsoft's Kinect device.

"So you can imagine the efficiencies and the opportunities and the options for innovation we have moving together," he added.

Intel talked up the technology in Shenzhen, which is a major manufacturing base in the country, and home to tablet and smartphone vendors with lesser-known brand names.

On Wednesday, Intel also said it would also expand in the Internet of Things sector, with its upcoming Atom X3 processor, codenamed "SoFIA".

The Atom X3 had been designed for tablets and smartphones, but Intel said its scope has widened to include connected devices in the IoT space. These 3G and LTE chips will be built for Android and Linux, and developer kits will arrive in this year's second half.

Intel wants to tap into Shenzhen's hardware eco-system, but it faces an uphill battle. Many Chinese vendors have long been using ARM-based chips from Intel's rivals Qualcomm and MediaTek. These chips are generally more power-efficient and cost less than Intel processors.

To try and reverse the trend, Intel has been signing up Chinese partners to popularize its chips. Last year, it made a deal with local chipmaker Rockchip to use its Atom X3 processor.

The first devices from that partnership are expected to arrive later this quarter, Intel said. Over 45 tablet and smartphone designs are in development using the Atom X3 processor.

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More

Tablo OTA DVR gets slick new apps, but new hardware gets pushed to May

Tablo is one of the more unique tools for those who've ditched cable TV, extending over-the-air antenna broadcasts to phones, tablets, computers, and set-top boxes. But until now, a subpar software situation has held Tablo's hardware back.

Things are looking up, however, with new Tablo apps for Android TV and Amazon Fire TV, along with an overhauled app for Roku devices. Tablo maker Nuvyyo has been talking about these apps since January, and it's finally releasing them now.

Here's how Tablo works: First, you hook up the Tablo box to your home Wi-Fi router with an Ethernet cable, then you plug in your own over-the-air antenna and an external hard drive. Using Tablo's apps, you can then stream live broadcast TV to other devices over your local Wi-Fi network. You can also set up Tablo as a DVR for broadcast channels.

Tablo costs $220 with two tuners or $240 with four tuners, though you'll have to supply your own antenna and external hard drive for the system to work. While Tablo's apps are free, certain features—such as recording by series and out-of-home streaming—require a $5 per month subscription.

Why this matters: The number of people living without cable TV is quickly growing, and many of those people are doing so with the help of over-the-air antennas that can pick up high-definition broadcast channels such as ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox. Products like Tablo are arriving at just the right time, adding modern-day features such as DVR and playback on mobile devices.

As Tablo noted in a recent blog post, the old Roku app was essentially a cookie-cutter design based on Roku's standard development console. As such, it's kind of stodgy-looking, and it doesn't allow for custom views such as a grid-like channel guide. The new app has a more modern look, with a sidebar menu for jumping between different parts of the interface.

Tablo's new apps combine a traditional channel grid and a handy sidebar menu.

On the downside, the app only supports DVR scheduling for 24 hours out, though an update in the coming months will add scheduling from 14 days out. (Tablo is keeping its old Roku app around until the new one reaches feature parity.)

The Android TV and Fire TV apps look similar to the new Roku app, with some minor design differences.

Unfortunately, Nuvyyo still isn't ready to release its Tablo Metro hardware, which has an integrated antenna so you don't have to clutter the space around your router with a pair of rabbit ears. Nuvyyo originally planned to release the Metro in March, but a spokeswoman told me it's looking more like late May at this point.

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More

Microsoft, Getty settle copyright dispute

Microsoft and Getty Images have settled a copyright dispute and agreed to work together to provide the digital media company's images for the software giant's products like Bing and Cortana.

Getty had filed a complaint in September against the Bing Image Widget, launched in the previous month, which let publishers embed collages and slideshows of images from search results on their websites.

In its copyright complaint against Microsoft in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Getty alleged that the "beautiful, configurable image galleries and slideshows" typically consist of copyrighted images, including images whose copyrights are owned or controlled by Getty.

Microsoft said it had temporarily removed the widget to talk with Getty Images and better understand its concerns, but Getty countered that the widget remained in operation across websites worldwide, to which Microsoft continues to supply images, including Getty's copyrighted images, without a license to do so.

"Rather than draw from a licensed collection of images, Defendant gathers these images by crawling as much of the Internet as it can, copying and indexing every image it finds, without regard to the copyright status of the images and without permission from copyright owners like Plaintiff," Getty said in its complaint.

The technology teams of the two companies will now work "to create beautiful, engaging applications and services for Microsoft users with licensed content and attribution for photographers and other content creators," according to a joint statement Tuesday by the two companies.

On Tuesday, Judge Denise Cote dismissed with prejudice the claims of both companies, which would bar both companies from refiling on the same claims.

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More

Complaint alleges YouTube Kids pushes advertising content

The six-week-old YouTube Kids service is a "hyper-commercialized" environment that intermixes advertising and other programming in a way that deceives its target audience, a coalition of privacy and children's advocacy groups said in a complaint to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

Joining in giving YouTube Kids the big thumbs-down are the Center for Digital Democracy, the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. They say the video app, targeted toward preschool children, blurs the lines between advertising and other programming using methods that are prohibited by federal regulations on commercial television.

In their request Tuesday for an FTC investigation, the groups say that YouTube Kids' programming amounts to an unfair business practice.

The video service, which bills itself as safe for children, is "the most hyper-commercialized media environment for children I have ever seen," said Dale Kunkel, a professor of communications at the University of Arizona.

YouTube corporate parent Google defended the service, saying it doesn't collect personal information and it includes several parental-control features. "When developing YouTube Kids we consulted with numerous partners and child advocacy and privacy groups," a Google representative said by email. "We are always open to feedback on ways to improve the app."

U.S. regulators haven't applied rules for children's television programming to the digital environment, partly because online companies have been slow to target young children with advertising, said Kunkel, a long-time children's media researcher. But YouTube Kids uses "numerous tactics that have already been ruled illegal on TV," he said by email. "It's astonishing that a major company like this would be so completely out of touch with the special protections typically afforded to children in electronic media."

Some of the practices on YouTube Kids, including program hosts pitching products to children "haven't been seen since the 1950s," Kunkel added. 

YouTube Kids often plays ads immediately before or after other video content, with no separation between channel content like Sesame Street and Thomas and Friends and the advertising, the complaint said. There's no clear separation between the ads and other content, as required on TV, the complaint said, and while the ads are labeled, many YouTube Kids viewers may not be able to read those labels.

"This blending of children's programming content with advertising material on television has long been prohibited because it is unfair and deceptive to children," the groups said in the complaint. "The fact that children are viewing the videos on a tablet or smartphone screen instead of on a television does not make it any less unfair and deceptive."

In addition, YouTube Kids features branded channels for McDonald's, Barbie, Fisher-Price and other products that are "little more than program-length commercials," and are not labeled as advertising, the groups said in a news release.

The service also distributes what it calls "user-generated" segments that feature toys, candy and other products without disclosing that the producers of the videos have business relationships with the companies selling those products, the complaint said. That failure to disclose the business relationships likely violates the FTC's endorsement guidelines, which require product reviewers to disclose business relationships with companies, the groups said.

The complaint goes beyond YouTube Kids intermingling advertising with other content, said Josh Golin, associate director of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood. "It's also that they are marketing their app as being a safe haven for children when, in fact, from a commercialism standpoint, it's far worse than other platforms for kids," he said by email.

YouTube Kids should be redesigned, added Jeffrey Chester, executive director at the Center for Digital Democracy, a privacy group that has criticized other Google practices.

"They are focused on transforming kids' clicks and eyeballs into much needed profits—so much so they lost sense of their corporate responsibility to young people and their families," he said by email. "The app needs to be redesigned to act as a age-appropriate channel for young children—not as just another Google ad-supported product application."

16.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Bitcoin Foundation said to be out of cash

The Bitcoin Foundation, an organization that promotes development of bitcoin, is "effectively bankrupt" and has shed most of its staff, a member of the foundation's board of directors has said.

Two other board members, however, said the foundation was not bankrupt, though in need of some kind of restructuring.

The outburst by Olivier Janssens, who was elected to the board last month, is the latest in a series of controversies surrounding the foundation, which was founded in the U.S. in 2012 as a nonprofit entity.

"The foundation has almost no money left, and just fired 90 percent of its people. Some will stay on as volunteers," Janssens wrote in a blog post on the foundation's forum.

"The Bitcoin Foundation hates transparency," he added. "If they would have been transparent then everyone would know there is no money left."

Janssens attributed the foundation's financial straits to two years of "ridiculous spending and poorly thought out decisions," adding that the board has tried to remedy the situation by finding a new executive director. He called for the replacement of the entire board.

Described as a bitcoin millionaire, Janssens wrote that he will donate "several 100k" to a special trust fund aimed at supporting core development of the digital currency and supplemented by crowdfunding efforts.

The foundation did not immediately respond to a request for information about Janssens' post. But Patrick Murck, its executive director, wrote in a response to Janssens' post, "The foundation is not bankrupt, but a restructuring is needed. Olivier basically jumped in front of our announcements on that and our annual report on the 2014 finances to be released next week, and he spun it very very negative."

While saying that "the money has basically run out," board member Gavin Adresen wrote in another response that "The foundation isn't bankrupt, but the board needs to decide whether the responsible thing to do is to continue the organization with a much smaller organization and vision or to dissolve it."

The Bitcoin Foundation is no stranger to controversy. Among its founding members are Charlie Shrem, who pleaded guilty to transmitting money linked to the Silk Road online drugs site, and Mark Karpeles, who presided over the collapse of MtGox, once the world's largest trading place for bitcoin.

In May 2014, a number of Bitcoin Foundation members quit in frustration over the organization's direction and issues related to a board election.

16.01 | 0 komentar | Read More

Uber seeks to dismiss India rape lawsuit

Uber Technologies has asked a California court to dismiss a civil lawsuit brought against it by a woman who alleges she was raped by an Uber driver while taking a trip in Delhi.

In part, Uber contests that it never had a relationship with the driver in question and that the alleged crime falls outside of the jurisdiction of U.S. courts.

The lawsuit was filed in January and relates to an incident in early December in which the woman, who was not identified, took a 45-minute Uber ride home. She fell asleep in the car and says she woke up to find the car parked in a secluded area and the driver on top of her. She was raped and assaulted for more than 30 minutes, according to the lawsuit.

With a building public outcry in India against the company, Uber called the assault "an abhorrent crime" and said it was committed to working with the New Delhi police to bring the perpetrator to justice.

In a late Monday filing in San Francisco, Uber drew a distinction between Uber Technologies, the U.S.-based parent company, and Uber B.V., the Dutch-based subsidiary that operates the Uber service in India.

"This case has everything to do with India and the Netherlands, and nothing to do with the United States," it said.

"Plaintiffs counsel has chosen to sue only Uber Technologies, which never had any relationship with Yadav, the alleged assailant," it said. "Yadavs only contractual relationship with any Uber entity was with Uber B.V., a Dutch company not party to this suit."

Uber, like many companies, runs its international operations through a subsidiary in the Netherlands. The company, which often champions the so-called sharing economy, benefits from this arrangement by reducing or avoiding taxes in many countries where it operates.

Uber B.V. is one of more than 100 distinct legal entities around the world that sit under the Uber brand, it said.

The company went on to argue that a California courtroom was not the right place for justice to be served as the assault took place in India between two Indian citizens.

The original lawsuit asks the court to order Uber to take affirmative steps to remedy the alleged conduct and prevent repeated occurrences.

Uber called the demands "impermissible, unworkable, and unprecedented" and said such an injunction would "rewrite Uber's business policies worldwide."

The plaintiff also seeks damages. A court case against Uber in the Netherlands or India, if successful, would likely be much less costly to the company than one in the U.S.

Uber's lawyers have asked for a hearing in July to argue that the case be dismissed.

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More

Expired Google certificate temporarily disrupts Gmail service

Google forgot to renew one of its TLS certificates, leading to service disruption Saturday for people using Gmail through third-party email clients.

The problem was fixed in a matter of hours, but should serve as a reminder to online service operators that keeping track of digital certificate expiration dates is important and should be planned for in advance.

Some users reported Saturday on Twitter and other sites that email clients like Microsoft Outlook and OS X Mail were displaying certificate errors when trying to send email messages through smtp.gmail.com.

It seems that it wasn't the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server's certificate that expired, but one higher up in the chain that corresponded to Google Internet Certificate Authority G2—an intermediate certificate authority operated by Google.

When SSL/TLS certificates are validated by software applications, all certificates they link back to need to be valid as well. In this case the certificate for smtp.gmail.com had been issued by Google Internet Authority G2, which had in turn been issued by GeoTrust Global CA.

According to the Gmail status page, it took Google around two and a half hours to fix the problem, which affected "a majority of users." The certificate was renewed and is now set to expire on Dec. 31, 2016.

While operators of large online services typically monitor their certificates closely, similar expiration incidents have occurred before and when they do, they can have serious consequences.

In February 2013, an expired certificate issue disrupted the Microsoft Azure service worldwide for around a day. Since Azure is a cloud computing platform, many third-party services relying on it were affected as well.

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More

Major Roku upgrades include voice search for $100 Roku 3, new hardware for $70 Roku 2

Roku announced major upgrades to its popular media streamers on Tuesday. The flagship Roku 3 ($100) gets an all-new remote control with an integrated mic that can be used for voice searches, and the new Roku 2 ($70) is now based on the same hardware as its more-expensive sibling.

The new Roku 2's remote, however, doesn't support voice search, and it loses the headphone jack that it currently has (the Roku 3's remote retains this feature, which is useful for private listening). The Roku 1 and the Roku Streaming Stick ($50 each) remain the same, apart from new software features that will be common to the entire lineup (and all other Roku players manufactured since 2011).

Why this matters: Roku is slugging it out with Amazon, Apple, and Google to lead the media-streaming space, and consumers are reaping the benefits from this healthy competition. It's unfortunate to see a product lose a feature—I'm referring to the headphone jack on the Roku 2's remote, in this case—but the faster hardware under the hood should more than make up for that. 

Roku prioritizes hardware and search

"We focused on two key areas," Roku chief marketing office Matthew Anderson told me in a briefing last week, "the next stage of search and discovery, and hardware enhancements to the Roku 2 and the Roku 3."

To use voice search on the Roku 3's remote, you hold down the search button and speak. A circled-mic icon in the user interface pulses with each word until you release the button, to provide visual feedback that your search terms have been acknowledged.

You can search by title, actor, or director. The Roku will respond by listing all the content available on Roku that matches your criteria. After the primary search term, search results are listed in reverse order of cost, so that free content is listed first.

Roku

The new Roku 2 will no longer have a headphone jack in its remote control. And while the hardware can support the voice-search feature that comes with the Roku 3's remote, Roku doesn't plan to sell that remote solo.

The Roku 3's new voice-search remote is compatible with the new Roku 2 (the cheaper box is built using the same hardware as the Roku 3, after all), but Anderson said the company currently has no plans to sell the new remote separately. "We'll look at offering the remote separately if the market demands it," he said. The new remote will not work with the Roku 1 or the Roku Streaming Stick.

Across-the-board software upgrades

All four Roku models will get software updates, including the new search functionality (apart from voice recognition). Another new software feature, "Roku Feed," lets you "follow" new movies that are currently in theaters but not yet available on Roku. Movies garner the most attention while they're in theaters (and shortly before), so this feature lets you track as many films as you'd like and be notified as soon as they become available on one of Roku's channels.

Roku

"Follow" a movie and you'll receive as soon as it becomes available for streaming on a Roku channel. 

Roku will report when the movie is available for streaming, which service it's available on, and how much it costs. Each time the movie becomes available on a new channel or changes price, your feed will get an update. "It's like search that keeps on searching," said Anderson. "It does the work for you."

Anderson said the new Roku 2 and Roku 3 are available today, although it will take some time for the devices to reach all retail channels. Deployment of the new software—plus all-new Android and iOS companion apps—also starts today.

The new software that embraces all Roku models back to the 2011 vintage sounds extremely promising. Even the biggest fans lose track of some new movies they didn't get a chance to see in theaters, so the "movies coming soon" feature is also compelling. Roku says we'll get hardware to review sometime this week, so I'll be able to report soon on whether everything lives up to its promise. 

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More

California sends revenge porn operator to prison for 18 years

The operator of a revenge porn website has been sentenced to 18 years in prison, in what is being described as the first criminal prosecution in the U.S. of the operator of a website of this type.

Kevin Christopher Bollaert, 27, of San Diego, was found guilty in February this year on six counts of extortion and 21 counts of identity theft, California's Attorney General Kamala D. Harris said in a statement. He was arrested in December 2013.

U.S. regulators have started clamping down on revenge porn, which generally consists of the posting of nude photos and other explicit content of users without their permission, and then blackmailing them for payment to take it down.

The Federal Trade Commission in January charged Craig Brittain, the operator of a website isanybodydown.com, for allegedly charging women between US$200 and $500 to have their images and personal information deleted from the site. The images were obtained under false pretenses.

Under the terms of a settlement with the FTC, its first case against a revenge porn site, Brittain was required to permanently delete all the images and other personal information he received during the time he operated the site.

Bollaert similarly extorted fees ranging from $250 to $350 from affected women with the promise that the compromising content would be removed, according to Harris.

His website ugotposted.com required that the poster include the subject's full name, location, age and Facebook profile link, resulting in severe harassment to the victims on social media, at places of work and in their communities, she added.

Casey E. Meyering, 28, of Tulsa, Oklahoma, the alleged owner and operator of another revenge porn website, was arrested in February last year by agents of Harris' e-crime unit. He was charged with five felony extortion counts and is awaiting trial on June 8.

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More

Assassin's Creed Rogue review: The best Assassin's Creed you'll never need to play

I talked a lot of trash about Assassin's Creed: Unity this year. On release it was buggy and broken, sure, but it also just wasn't much fun. Protagonist Arno was just a bland retread of series-favorite Ezio, the story managed to make even the French Revolution feel sort of boring, the overhauled free-running was too sticky and cumbersome, and I just overall felt it lacked the panache of the previous year's Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.

There was another Assassin's Creed game this year though—Assassin's Creed Rogue, originally released for last-gen consoles and then recently brought over to PC. Knowing how I felt about Unity, this should be a pretty good endorsement for Rogue:

Most of what's left is the legendary ship battles.

Black Flag Pt. II

Assassin's Creed Rogue is the best Assassin's Creed game that you're probably never going to play.

This is basically the second time Ubisoft has done this. With the exception of the first game, Ubisoft seems to want to position the Assassin's Creed series as a chain of trilogies. We had the Assassin's Creed II/Brotherhood/Revelations arc, wherein the first game was good, the second was great, and then Revelations was basically an inessential coda for long-time fans to say farewell to Ezio.

Well Rogue is the Revelations of the Assassin's Creed III era. In other words, it takes the best parts of Assassin's Creed III (which isn't much) and mashes it up with the best parts of Black Flag. In other, other words, it's Black Flag 1.5.

And I loved Black Flag, so that's fine with me.

The story takes place during the Seven Years War/French and Indian War, which spanned from 1754-1763. That puts Rogue right between Black Flag's piracy and ACIII's American Revolution. Rogue takes advantage of this by pulling in characters from both of the previous games, giving some closure to Black Flag characters like Adewale and some backstory to ACIII characters like Achilles and Haytham Kenway.

It's a fascinating structure, although it's hampered by the fact that...well, Assassin's Creed III wasn't that good. It's somewhat hard to care about the backstory of characters you didn't necessarily care about to begin with.

Still, it's oddly heartwarming to see some familiar faces in a series that seems content with ditching its entire cast every year. Over the course of the game you're hit with cameo after cameo from an extensive B-tier cast that plays foil to the new protagonist, Shay Patrick Cormac.

I don't know why Cormac's story was wasted on Rogue. Here's a guy who was brought up in the Assassins, turned traitor, and went to work for the Templars killing off his old friends. That's a hell of a set-up, shedding more light on the relationship between the two factions than possibly any game in the series thus far and providing all sorts of opportunities for moral ambiguity. It's certainly more interesting than Unity's story.

And yet it's given short shrift in Rogue, as a "budget" title. Rather than the dozen or so chapters of a normal Assassin's Creed game, Cormac is given a scant six chapters of story to cover both his upbringing in the Assassins, his turn, and then the whole rest of the game.

It's too fast. Cormac isn't given nearly enough character development to handle all that weight, nor are the other characters given enough time for you to learn to care about them. It's probably good that you'll recognize most of the characters from previous Assassin's Creed games because otherwise they'd just be nameless caricatures. Adewale, for instance, has probably two dozen lines in the entire game. That's not enough to do anything meaningful.

I'm left with the impression that Rogue is the most ambitious Assassin's Creed story—in terms of character, in terms of information on the two factions, in terms of First Civilization lore—but it just never clicks. There's a guy working for Abstergo Industries in the modern-day part of the game who continually tells you that Shay Cormac is "the most important Assassin to ever live" or something along those lines, but at the end of the day...why? Because he killed some other Assassins?

Told you so. (Click to expand and read subtitles)

I don't know. I just don't buy it, and that's a shame because I think in a full-fledged game Cormac could be that important. He just got screwed by playing B-side to Unity this year.

On the other hand, it plays like Black Flag: sail your ship around, listen to pirate shanties, discover little coastal towns, dig for treasure, beat people up in bars, blow up other ships. Rather than one large Caribbean map, the sailing section of the game is now split between the River Valley (a part of New York that looks strangely like a retextured Caribbean) and the North Atlantic up by Halifax (which also looks strangely similar to the Caribbean, albeit with snow and icebergs).

There's also a third, fairly large New York City/Manhattan map repurposed from Assassin's Creed III. This map plays more like traditional Assassin's Creed, with you running around and unlocking zones. It's also the most boring of the areas, because there's surprisingly little character to such a large city area. And the game seems aware of this, rarely bringing you back to Manhattan.

In fact, the game is generally terrible about making you explore. Because the story is so condensed, missions only touch on a handful of locations. Your only impetus to go and discover the rest of the map is "I want to."

And I mean, I did want to. I went to every location. I collected 100 percent of all the collectibles, because I really love sailing around. But Rogue never feels as tight or well-designed as Black Flag. There's a lot of space here, between the three maps, and very little reason to engage with any of it.

Bottom line

Play Rogue if you want more Black Flag. Play Rogue if you want to learn about the complex relationship between the Assassins and Templars. Play Rogue if you hated Unity and want a better Assassin's Creed experience this year.

Those are the three cases I can think of where you might end up playing this game. Is it essential? Absolutely not. But there's a decent game here, and my only real regret is you can tell there's the potential for a much better game if only the developers were given more to work with.

16.00 | 0 komentar | Read More