Latest news

Sprint has taken the carrier wars to the next level this week, offering more shared data than any other carrier at a cheaper price.

As part of their Family Share Pack plan, you can get up to 10 lines with unlimited talk, text, and 12GB of data for $90 a month.

Sprint said they will be reducing their data access charge from $25 to $15 for each handset, and if you are transferring from a different carrier, that fee is waived entirely.

The deal is good until March 2016. Comparatively, the deal is good but you have to keep in mind that you are signing up for the Sprint network, which has easily the slowest LTE of all the major U.S. carriers.

Source:
Sprint

Voltage Pictures, infamous for suing tens of thousands of unauthorized downloaders of their films, has agreed to stop suing kids, physically disabled people, and the mentally disabled.

The company has sued tens of thousands of downloaders of 'The Hurt Locker' and 'Dallas Buyers Club' in the U.S., Canada and Europe, normally suing a 'John Doe' IP address and then getting a judge to rule that the ISP must provide their identity.

Most that are accused choose to settle out of court for a couple thousand dollars, and Voltage has been able to make a business out of it.

However, as other companies have seen in the past from mass lawsuits, the targets are not always what you would expect. A Voltage executive said that the company "would not pursue an autistic child, people who were handicapped, welfare cases, or people that have mental issues" any longer. Does Voltage really care about those people though? It seems that they care more about PR: "That kind of press would ruin us."

Snapchat has updated their "Safety Center" community guidelines, imploring minors to stop sending nudes.

As part of the 'Parent's Guide to Snapchat' in the Safety Center, the photo sharing and messaging app posted the following:

"Keep it legal: Don't use Snapchat for any illegal shenanigans and if you're under 18 or are Snapping with someone who might be: keep your clothes on!

What not to Snap:

Pornography
Nudity or sexually suggestive content involving minors (people under the age of 18)
Minors engaged in activities that are physically dangerous and harmful
Invasions of privacy
Threats
Harassment or Bullying
Impersonation
Self-Harm"

The move makes obvious sense. The app first gained popularity from people looking to exchange nudes that self destructed in seconds, but has since evolved into much more. In many states, as well, having a photo of a person under 18 is technically considered child pornography, even if you yourself are under the age of 18.

Earlier this month, The Pirate Bay relaunched after nearly two months of downtime but with one group notably missing: moderators.

Now that security issues have been resolved, the moderator team is back with access to the back end of the site.

The team has a large job ahead of them, as spammers and scammers have been using the past few weeks to upload fake torrents and place spam and scam comments across legit torrent files. Fake torrents are most often littered with malware but some are less malicious and just include the incorrect file.

"I don't know how many torrents have been removed so far, but it is in the hundreds. Some fakers had eight or nine pages under their account," longtime TPB moderator Agricola noted.

New accounts have been banned for the time being, to help the cleanup, and the old title of "helper" has also been removed.

HTC' latest flagship, the One M9, has been leaked in all its glory, a week before its expected official unveiling.

Thanks to a German retailer, we have specs and pictures of the upcoming device.

Powering the smartphone is a 2GHz octa-core Snapdragon 810 processor, 3GB RAM, 32GB internal storage (with microSD slot), and a 2,840mAh battery.

Although the resolution is unclear, the device has a 5-inch display, which will be at least 1080p. The device runs Android 5.0 and HTC's own Sense 7 UI. The UltraPixel camera will sit on the front and the standard camera will have a 20MP sensor.

In both colorways, (gold/silver and black), the smartphone does look very similar to last year's popular One M8 and except for the camera bulge and the power button moving, it looks otherwise the same.

Regardless, we will know next Sunday officially when the Mobile World Congress event starts and HTC officially announces the phone.

Last month, Jay Z's investment company PPB acquired the Swedish streaming company Aspiro, the parent of services Tidal and WimP.

Before the bid, however, it seems that the service was in dire straits, financially. At the time of the bid, the company's board said "given the current strategic plan and the associated capital needs, the company is not fully funded for the coming twelve months." More simply, without extra funds the service would not have lasted the next year.

In addition, the board said that 'although it has many promising growth initiatives, primarily related to the expansion of Tidal... these initiatives are currently unprofitable and capital consuming,'

Last year, the company had a loss of €8.9m on revenue of €31.9m. Aspiro has 503,000 paying music subscribers, with 78 percent of those coming from telcom bundles.

Kickstarter has posted this week that the 'Exploding Kittens' campaign is now the most backed ever, and also the highest funded project in the games category.

The card game was created by Xbox game designers Elan Lee and Shane Small but the heavy hitter is artist Matthew Inman, who illustrates the extremely popular The Oatmeal comics.

When the campaign closed, 219,382 backers had pledged $8,782,571. The amount of backers was double the previous record holder, Reading Rainbow, and the funding was over $180,000 more than now second place Ouya, the Android set-top console.

How does the game that just raised $8 million work? You draw cards from the pile and if you get one that is exploding, you are dead. There are other cards that can be used to defuse the bomb and others that give you special abilities for the game. In all reality, the game is "a highly strategic kitty-powered version of Russian Roulette."

Google wants its failed Google Wallet service to be able to compete against the popular Apple Pay mobile payments system, and could be willing to pay for it.

The search giant is hoping to unveil a new version of the payment service at its developer conference later this year, one that will include partnerships with carriers, OEMs and more importantly, banks and payment networks.

To be able to make such an event happen, the WSJ suggests that Google will have to offer more revenue to each player involved.

The biggest problem, at this point, is the fact that there are dozens of Android manufacturers, and none of them necessarily have loyalty to Google outside of using the Android operating system. Many use their own user interface and have pre-loaded apps that benefit the company's own ecosystem.

Samsung, the world's biggest smartphone maker, is expected to release its own payment service next month after completing its acquisition of LoopPay. After investing hundreds of millions on such a service, there is little incentive to team up with Google Wallet.

Apple, which controls the software ecosystem and the hardware, does not have such problems. Apple Pay, after just months of release, now accounts for over 65 percent of all contact-less payments.

Samsung, who has spent the better part of the last two weeks posting teasers for their upcoming 'Unpacked' event has seemingly confirmed that its upcoming Galaxy S6 will indeed be metal, a step away from its plastic predecessors.

According to the teaser video, the device will be "beautiful, sleek and powerful," (but really what else could they say) and will also be made of metal.

Additionally, consumers can expect the device to have an accurate color palette just like the Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge, which certainly seems reasonable and is a relief.

Samsung will officially unveil the device during its Unpacked event on March 1st during the Mobile World Congress event.

Check the teaser here:

Earlier this week it was revealed that Lenovo's consumer grade laptops have a serious security vulnerability via the Superfish software pre-installed by the manufacturer.

Lenovo responding to the criticism shortly after released an automatic removal tool and now Microsoft has joined the fight.

Microsoft has released an update to its Windows Defender software that will detect and remove the adware. The update was noted by a security professional Filippo Valsorda on Twitter today.

Superfish is a piece of software that adds adverts to your web browser. While the adverts are harmless – if annoying – the vulnerability in the program enabled hackers to launch a so called man-in-the-middle attack and potentially capture data from the victim's internet connection.k

You can check if you are affected by Superfish here.

Undoubtedly, one of the biggest tech news pieces of the week was the fact that Lenovo pre-installed Superfish, an adware program that could be easily exploited to give anyone unencrypted access to your PC if they are on the same Wi-Fi network.

Lenovo, who first did not take the threat seriously, was bombarded by criticism and has now released a tool to help users remove Superfish.

Says the company:

In addition to the manual removal instructions currently available online, we have released an automated tool to help users remove the software and certificate. That tool is here: http://support.lenovo.com/us/en/product_security/superfish_uninstall
We are working with McAfee and Microsoft to have the Superfish software and certificate quarantined or removed using their industry-leading tools and technologies. These actions have already started and will automatically fix the vulnerability even for users who are not currently aware of the problem.

We ordered Superfish preloads to stop and had server connections shut down in January based on user complaints about the experience. However, we did not know about this potential security vulnerability until yesterday. Now we are focused on fixing it.

Since that time we have moved as swiftly and decisively as we can based on what we now know. While this issue in no way impacts our ThinkPads; any tablets, desktops or smartphones; or any enterprise server or storage device, we recognize that all Lenovo customers need to be informed. We apologize for causing these concerns among our users for any reason – and we are learning from experience and improve what we do and how we do it. We will continue to take steps to make removal of the software and underlying vulnerable certificates in question easy for customers so they can continue to use our products with the confidence that they expect and deserve.

Google has announced that their to-do-list/calendar/email app 'Inbox' is now available for the iPad and Android tablets.

Additionally, Inbox now supports Firefox and Safari in addition to Chrome. If you have the app, you can sign in at inbox.google.com.

A rundown of the highlights of Inbox:

• HIGHLIGHTS - Get the most important information without even opening the message. Check-in for flights, see shipping information for BUNDLES - Similar messages are bundled together so you can deal with them all at once. And get rid of them with one tap.

• HIGHLIGHTS - Get the most important information without even opening the message. Check-in for flights, see shipping information for purchases, and view photos from friends right up front.

• REMINDERS: More than mail, you can add Reminders so your inbox contains all the things you need to get back to.

• SNOOZE: Snooze emails and Reminders to come back when you are ready to deal with them: next week, when you get home, or whenever you choose.

• SEARCH: Inbox helps you find exactly what you're looking for-- from your upcoming flight to a friend's address-- without having to dig through messages.

Apple, who has allegedly had hundreds of engineers working on a car, would like to begin production on their electric vehicle by 2020, reads a new Bloomberg report.

If accurate, Apple's car could be ready to compete with Tesla and GM, both of which are fighting to bring the first electric car that can go over 200 miles per charge and cost less than $40,000, a major price point for consumers.

While Tesla has the leg up in the technology of the electric car world, Apple could very quickly catch up with the $178 billion in cash it is sitting on. The company has been hiring battery, car and robotics experts, and there are an expected 200 engineers working on the project now.

In fact, Apple has been so aggressive in hiring, that has been accused of "poaching" employees from battery maker A123 Systems and others like LG Chem, Samsung, Panasonic and Johnson Controls. Experienced car makers take about 5 to 7 years to bring a new concept and vehicle to market, says industry experts, but Apple has no experience in the space and is still trying to keep the same time frame.

Research firm Strategy Analytics has predicted today that the Sony PlayStation 4 will end up outselling the Microsoft Xbox One by over 30 million units during their respective lifetimes.

Over the next four years, the PS4 "is on path to reproduce the success of the PlayStation 2 and Nintendo Wii." To replicate either of those consoles would be impressive given that they sold over 100 million systems during their time.

By 2019, Sony will have a global install base of 80 million PS4, says Strategy Analytics, crushing the Xbox One at 57 million.

The Wii U is already nearing its peak and will reach a 17 million install base by 2018 before reaching saturation.

"Despite reports to the contrary, the game console market is not dead," concluded Strategy Analytics senior analyst Eric Smith. "Core gamers have moved faster to this current generation than in any previous generation. The main difference in this generation is that casual gamers who bought a Wii are remaining largely on the side lines as free-to-play casual games and midcore games on tablets and smartphones have captured this segment of consumers."

Say what you will about their products or the company itself, but Apple's architectural designers do have a flair for the aesthetic.

Their latest store, in Hangzhou, China, takes minimalist to the next level.

The ceilings of the store are 50 feet high but there are no columns. The glass panels reach all the way from the floor to the ceiling and the entire second floor is free floating without suspension.

"Every aspect of the store has been optimized, minimized, and de-cluttered," say the architects at Foster + Partners.

See some pics here: