Latest news

Chrysler has announced the recall of 1.4 million vehicles less than a week after a Wired report showed that hackers could remotely seize control of the cars and cut the brakes or even overtake the steering wheel.

The company's cars use the integrated UConnect system, which is clearly susceptible to a full remote hijacking.

Affected vehicles all have an 8.4-inch touchscreen and are from the following families of vehicles:

2013-2015 MY Dodge Viper specialty vehicles
2013-2015 Ram 1500, 2500 and 3500 pickups
2013-2015 Ram 3500, 4500, 5500 Chassis Cabs
2014-2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee and Cherokee SUVs
2014-2015 Dodge Durango SUVs
2015 MY Chrysler 200, Chrysler 300 and Dodge Charger sedans
2015 Dodge Challenger sports coupes

Thanks to a couple new leaks, we appear to have all the details of the upcoming Moto G.

The Moto G, first launched in 2013, is a low-cost yet high-end Android device and is moving into its third generation.

According to the leaks, the device will have a 720p Gorilla Glass protected display, 2GB RAM, internal storage of either 8GB or 16GB depending on the model, be powered by an unknown quad-core Snapdragon processor and the device will be eligible to run through the Moto Maker customization site.

If customizing, there are two options for the front case - black or white - and then ten choices for the back case: Cherry, Cabernet, Blue, Raspberry, Turquoise, Black, Gold Yellow, White, Lime, and Navy. In addition, there are metallic accents you can choose from including Light chrome, blue, red, lemon lime, dark chrome, champagne, black, orange, violet, and pink.

The phone will have a 13MP rear camera, a 5MP selfie camera and the device will be water-resistant.

According to the most recent video game sales figures, it is clear that the Microsoft Xbox One is selling just as poorly, if not worse than previous generations of Microsoft consoles, in Japan.

For the week ended July 13th, the Sony PlayStation 4 led the way with 24,266 units sold, followed by the new Nintendo 3DS XL at 19,432 consoles sold. Somewhat surprisingly, the Sony PlayStation Vita was in third place, at 13,190 units sold.

The list goes on and ends with the Xbox One, which sold a shockingly low 242 units, an actual increase from the 149 that were sold the week before.

Also somewhat comically, the 3DS game Yo-kai Watch Busters (about ghost busting cats) handily beat out the blockbuster Batman: Arkham Knight.

According to a new report, Microsoft will be releasing two Windows 10 Lumia flagship devices this holiday season, both of which will include iris scanners and one of which will have Surface Pen tech.

Reportedly, the Lumia 950 will have a 5.2-inch QHD OLED screen, a 20MP PureView camera (5MP selfie cam) and come with Windows 10 Mobile pre-installed. The device will be powered by a 64-bit Hexa core Snapdragon 808, 3GB RAM, a 3000mAh removable battery, 32GB internal storage (expandable with microSD) and will also support USB Type-C and Qi wireless charging.

The Lumia 950 XL (codename: Cityman) will have a 5.7-inch QHD OLED screen, be powered by 64-bit Octa core Snapdragon 810, 3GB of RAM, a 3300mAh battery, Qi wireless charging support and USB Type-C support. Also different from its smaller brother is triple LED flash for the 20MP rear camera, aluminum side buttons and a 1mm silver ring inside the black camera pod.

On paper, both devices sound great for the operating system that is seriously lacking a flagship that people can remember.

Twitter followers are a commodity that can be turned into cash. So it is understandable that the fight for followers is fierce.

A lot of the Twitter accounts that have a tremendous amount of followers are celebrities and media who naturally have that kind of following, but it is possible to create a following for yourself even without much of a presence in the real world.

One of the ways is to have snarky commentary and witty jokes. However, since it is really hard to come up with original jokes there has been a surge of tweet thieves. Twitter is now removing the tweets on copyright grounds, The Verge reports.

A tweet by @runolgarun (Olga Lexell) has been stolen and removed at least five times, noted Twitter user @PlagiarismBad. Lexell also has confirmed on Twitter that she in fact requested the removal of these stolen tweets. She says that they were tweeted by spam bots that had also stolen other jokes, and that the tweets were removed by Twitter without further questions.

China has had an peculiar ban on video game consoles for 15 years. Since last year it hasn't affected companies registered in he Shanghai Free Trade Zone anymore, but now it's finally time to end the ban altogether, WSJ reports.

The Ministry of Culture revealed earlier this week that the ban will lift from the whole country. That means that manufacturing and selling video game consoles is again allowed. This obviously opens up the game market in a huge way.

Companies including Sony and Microsoft are surely looking to commit into China more now. Sony told Wall Street Journal this was "great news" for the company.

In 2000 China decided on the video game console ban to prevent possible harmful influences to its youth. Presumably China has noticed there hasn't been proof of such effect in other countries.

Google has decided to offer once again freebies for Chromecast users. To celebrate the second birthday of Chromecast Google is offering free movies and music.

The offers featured on this website include 90 days of free music courtesy of Google Play as well as a free movie rental from the same service.

There's no hurry to redeem the freebies though, as the movie rental will be available to redeem until the end of the year and the music pass until the end of January 2016.

One problem you wouldn't think Apple has is money. Well, it seems that that's exactly one of the problems the company has. However, it is not lack thereof but instead the location.

Apple holds much of its cash overseas where it is not as convenient as it would be in the US. Tim Cook and company have to find out a way to use it or transfer it without paying a huge amount of US taxes, Bloomberg reports.

The cupertino tech giant has now almost 90 percent of its cash stored in offshore subsidiaries. That makes this a 200 billion – yes, billion – dollar problem.

These subsidiaries are not required to pay the 35 percent corporate tax rate of United States but it also means that Apple cannot use them for acquisitions – or much of anything really.

Obviously Apple is trying to lobby a tax reform for the corporate tax that is the highest in the industrialized world while some want the cash overseas to be taxes in the same fashion as in the US.

Google has released a new version of the YouTube mobile app. The app gets a facelift in form of new three new tab layout.

The update features three new tabs: Home, Subscriptions and Account. It is now available for Android devices and iOS will get it "soon".

Home tab is for exploring the content that is customized with user behavior and other factors calculated by the recommendation engine. Subscriptions shows your favorite channels and Account tab lets you browse your playlists, history, and your uploads.

The mobile app has now also been updated to support full screen vertical video.

The Commodore Amiga 1000 (or A1000) was released on July 23, 1985, and is still considered to have been years ahead of its time.

It stood out from the crowd for several reasons. Firstly, it sported a color graphical user interface (4096 colors) at a time when Apple's Macintosh cost considerably more (~$1000 more or so) with a black and white display. Most Amiga 1000 units were sold with an RGB monitor, but it did feature a built-in composite video output to support other monitors.

AmigaOS was a truly multitask operating system too.

Under the hood, it packed a Motorola 68000 CPU (7.16MHz NTSC, 7.09MHz PAL) upgradable officially to a 68010 and to other CPUs via third party route. While the 68000 was common in 1985, the Amiga 1000 features three additional co-processors for multimedia operations.

The Amiga 1000 had 256 KB of Amiga Chip RAM, which was officially upgradable to 512 KB and further with third party upgrades. Further hardware upgrades were possible through the included 86-pin expansion port.

When the Amiga 500 model launched a couple of years after for a cut price of $700, it established Amiga as a popular gaming system, with sales of around 6 million units.

AT&T has confirmed that it will be the first wireless carrier to offer the Microsoft Surface 3 tablet with 4G LTE support in the U.S.

The device will go on sale this week on Friday.

Of course, there are confusing pricing tiers but thankfully AT&T kind of broke it down:

"Beginning on Friday, July 24, you can purchase the Surface 3 for $0 down and $30 per month with an AT&T Tablet Installment plan. In addition, for a limited time, you can purchase a Surface 3 for $399.99 with any Lumia smartphone purchased on AT&T Next. Additionally, a commercial version of the Surface 3 will be available to business customers in the coming weeks."

The installment plan is for 20 months and has 0% APR.

After months of small leaks, we finally have a complete leak of the upcoming OnePlus 2 flagship including specs and pictures.

The handset will be officially unveiled on July 27th during a special VR event but for now we can thank Chinese regulator TENAA for publishing the details.

According to the post, the OnePlus 2 will feature a 5.5-inch display with QHD 2560 x 1440 resolution, a custom Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 processor, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of internal storage, a 13MP main camera, an 8MP front-facing camera and a 3,300 mAh battery. The phone's design is metal and will feature a USB Type-C port.

Additionally, there appears to be a real home button on the front of the phone, which could suggest the rumored fingerprint sensor.

OnePlus's founder confirmed the price tag would be under $450, but with specs like that we can't expect it to be much lower than $450.

Microsoft has revealed the life cycle for its upcoming Windows 10 operating system, hoping to clear up some confusion regarding support and updates.

The software giant says that as long as you have a legit Windows 10 build installed, you will get free updates for 10 years, ensuring you stay patched and updated for the next decade.

As with past operating systems, the original "mainstream" support is five years followed by "extended" support for five years after that.

The U.S. FCC has greenlighted AT&T's proposed acquisition of DirecTV, the $48.5 billion merger that will now create the U.S.' largest pay-TV company.

For the deal to pass, it still needs approval from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) but the DOJ has already said the deal does not pose risks of an anti-competitive nature, suggesting the deal should be able to close soon. The FCC's approval will be put into writing within weeks.

The approval will require conditions. AT&T must build out broadband Internet connections for 12.5 million new customers and it must also share all "traffic exchange agreements it strikes with content and web transit companies" with the FCC.

AT&T also agreed to offer Internet in more rural areas and offer at least 6Mbit speed Internet for its customers.

FCC boss Tom Wheeler is also looking to set up an independent office to ensure AT&T complies with the conditions, a first for the consumer protection group.

Google has officially killed the Chrome browser extension Streamus, leaving its 300,000 users in the dark.

Streamus first launched two years ago and allowed users to stream music, for free, right from their Chrome browser. The service used YouTube as its catalog but didn't display any of the actual videos (or their ads).

"We encourage people to leverage the power of our open API to embed YouTube videos in creative and innovative ways that comply with our terms of service," said YouTube in a statement, suggesting that Streamus was in violation.

Of course, Streamus was in violation as it split the audio from YouTube videos from its video, which is not allowed. Google has removed the app from its Chrome Web Store, as well.

Google has been testing their own service for those that like music through YouTube, with beta users having access to YouTube Music Key since earlier this year. The service costs $10 a month, has less ads, higher quality audio and allows for background playback on mobile apps.

Source:
Variety