Online Anonymity Nearly Impossible, Petraeus Emails Show

                                                                   (Image Credit: T. Ortega Gaines/AP Photo)

The Petraeus sex scandal rocked Washington, bringing down one of the most respected military minds of his generation, and with it, exposing a web of intimate and embarrassing electronic communications between the former CIA director and his paramour. It all begged the question:

If the nation’s top spy or his mistress — a counterintelligence expert — couldn’t keep their private email messages  truly private, then who can?

“It’s kind of ironic the leader of this organization dedicated to keeping things secret was completely exposed and left hung out to dry,” said Cole Stryker, an online privacy and anonymity expert and author of “Hacking the Future.”

Stryker said “99.9 percent” of people don’t have to worry about the FBI reading their electronic communication.  “But obviously there was enough of a reason, with all the implications, for the FBI to chase this one down,” he said.

Stewart Baker, a former assistant secretary at the Homeland Security Department who’s now in private law practice, agreed.

“As a general matter, the government cant get into your email unless they are conducting an investigation of a crime,” he told ABCNews.com.

See the timeline of the Petraeus/Broadwell affair HERE.

The FBI probe began in May or June of this year, sources told ABC News, when Jill Kelley, a Florida socialite and friend of the Petraeus family, began receiving anonymous harassing emails that she believed were referring to the CIA director. She feared his account had been compromised.

Those emails, as the world now knows, turned out to be not-so-anonymous after all.

With the FBI suspicions that Petraeus’ email had been compromised, investigators were able to begin a probe into the source of the emails, which ultimately led to the inbox of Paula Broadwell, the retired general’s biographer.

“It’s harder and harder to maintain anonymity, and particularly if you’re engaged in something that could reasonably be viewed as criminal conduct,” Baker said.

The FBI uncovered in Broadwell’s inbox  ”hundreds if not thousands of emails between Petraeus and Broadwell,” a source told ABC News, many of them salacious in nature and indicating an extramarital affair.

It is unknown whether the FBI utilized its subpoena power on Broadwell’s email provider, but Stryker said electronic communication from one account to another leaves footholds for investigators, such as an IP address.

That unique string of numbers can help investigators pinpoint a general location, or, for instance, a specific hotel, where someone may have logged on and sent an email.

Photos: Faces of the Petraeus Scandal

Broadwell was first interviewed by FBI agents the week of Oct. 21 and again on Nov. 2, a source told ABC News.

Petraeus, who was made aware of the probe by the FBI during the week of Oct. 29, gave his resignation to President Obama on Nov. 9. It was accepted a day later, ending a storied public career.

For Stryker, the story serves as a lesson for all that very few can achieve anonymity online, whether from a skilled hacker or the FBI.

“Anonymity requires a relentless attention to detail,” he said.  ”You have to be perfect with it or you’re sunk.”

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Woolly Mammoth Skeleton Found Near Paris, Nicknamed ‘Helmut’

Denis Gliksman/AP Photo

Sometimes scientists will admit they’re amazed that we know anything at all about the ancient past.  For the remains of a prehistoric animal to be found, conditions have to be just right.  It has to have died and been buried quickly, perhaps in the silt of a river.  Then it has to go undisturbed for eons, until someone finds it — and recognizes that it’s unusual.

That’s why French scientists say they’re pleased to have found a nearly-complete skeleton of a woolly mammoth near Changis-sur-Marne, in the countryside northeast of Paris.  They nicknamed it Helmut.

“A true discovery, in its original context, is exceptional in France, since only three specimens have been exhumed here in 150 years,” write researchers from France’s National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP), in an announcement posted on their website and translated by ABC News.

Helmut is believed to be between 50,000 and 200,000 years old, and the scientists say they believe it drowned or became trapped in mud.  Two small shards of flint were found among the bones, perhaps a hint that Neanderthal cavemen cut into the body for meat.  The researchers say it is unlikely the cavemen killed Helmut; the pieces of flint are too small.

Helmut probably had a thick coat of fur, good for the then-chilly climate of northern Europe.  It had an easier life than its descendants; mammoths are believed to have gone extinct in Europe about 10,000 years ago, unable to cope with climate change and human hunters.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Instagram CEO: Sandy Our Most Documented Event Ever

Karly Domb Sadof/AP Photo

The smartphone photo sharing app Instragram was an instant hit when it debuted in 2010. Now, two years later, the app has quickly become the most popular way that phone users share pictures, and may soon become the most popular means to share photos in any way.

When Superstorm Sandy hit the East Coast last week, many people reached for their phones to document the aftermath. Most of them, it seems, used Instagram to snap the photo.

“Sandy was a really interesting event for us,” Systrom said at the Nov. 5 GigaOM conference in San Francisco. “Sandy was the single largest event captured on Instagram — and the largest event captured on cellphones ever.”

According to Systrom, nearly one million Instagram photos were uploaded with the hashtag #Sandy.

That means Instagram is much more than just a way to show off to your friends. Users, Systrom says, are now updating their accounts to document important events like Sandy in what amounts to participation in the event. Instead of passive documentation, Instagram users are communicating with photos and making their Instagram experience more than just about consumption.

That conversation with photos is also about to get even easier, as the smartphone-based app expands onto the Web. The company, which was purchased by Facebook in the spring of 2012 for nearly $1 billion, is rolling out Instagram profiles, complete with user bios and photo streams of recent uploads.

According to a post on the Instagram blog, Web profiles will be rolled out “over the next few days” in a move that is sure to open the platform up to even more users.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

T-Mobile and AT&T to Share Networks in Areas Impacted by Hurricane Sandy

Image credit: John Minchillo/AP Photo

Times of national disaster not only can bring together people, but also rival technology companies.

This afternoon, AT&T and T-Mobile have announced that they will be working together in the wake of Hurricane Sandy to provide more service and coverage in areas hit by the storm. The two cellular providers will share networks and roaming capabilities in New York and New Jersey, an AT&T spokesman told ABC News.

AT&T and T-Mobile customers will be able to place calls as they usually do. The calls just might be carried over a network they don’t subscribe to. For instance, T-Mobile customers in New York City who have had very little service during the storm aftermath will now be able to place calls over AT&T’s network.

In each case, calls will be carried over the most operational network in the area.

“This agreement is possible because AT&T and T-Mobile use the same underlying wireless network technology,” AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel told ABC News. “Which network a customer is on will be completely transparent. The customer won’t even notice.”

There will be no extra costs to users, and no roaming fees or extra line items on bills.

Both AT&T and T-Mobile use the same GSM and UMTS network technology.

Verizon and Sprint use different technology, so they aren’t involved in this arrangement.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

A photo taken with a Samsung Google Nexus 10 tablet shows up on Picasa

A photo uploaded to Picasa confirms the existence of a Google Nexus 10 tablet manufactured by Samsung.

Unfortunately, the photo doesn’t reveal much besides its resolution of 2,560 x 1,920 and the Android build number, which is JVP12C.

Could this be the long rumored high-resolution tablet that analyst Richard Shim was talking about a few weeks ago? We can know for sure, but it’s fairly logical to assume that the tablet gets its beef from the new dual-core Cortex-A15 Exynos chip by Samsung that resides in the just announced Chromebook.

Google’s Android event on October 29 is approaching ever so rapidly, so let’s hope the new tablet gets it announcement then, in addition to the almost certain 32GB Nexus 7.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Apple rumored to be dipping into its savings to acquire Color Labs

After Color Labs was rumored to be closing its doors, the photo-sharing app startup refuted the allegation by saying it was doing no such thing. Now, a new rumor suggests it's be acquired by none other than Apple.

One minute Color Labs, creator of the photo-sharing social app Color, is closing down, then the next it’s not, and now there’s a rumor it’s about to be purchased by Apple. No matter which one is true, it has certainly put then app-the-world-forgot back in the news.

Today’s rumor comes from TheNextWeb.com, where “trusted sources” say Apple is about to hand over a figure in the high tens of millions for company, and perhaps more importantly, its patent portfolio. The patents up for grabs include those related to GPS, battery saving, group content sharing and HD video recording.

Forbes.com points out that Color has a trademark on its name, and an acquisition would also nab the desirable color.com URL. It also says that Google offered to purchase Color before it launched, and suggests that Apple wants to keep the patents out of Google’s hands.

The report says that Color founder Bill Nguyen has thrashed out a deal with Apple thanks in part to an existing relationship with Eddy Cue, Apple’s VP of Internet Software and Services. Apple also purchased Lala, an online music startup and another Nguyen project, back in 2009. It’s said the Color deal is complete, and only needs a few signatures before it’s final.

If the acquisition rumor is true, it clarifies Color’s statement that “Color is not shutting down,” which under the acquisition scenario, it’s not.

An acquisition would also net Apple some more talent, of which there should be plenty inside the company. Just before Color launched, a report in The Wall Street Journal from March 2011 told the story of how Sequoia Capital got involved with the project. They apparently told Nguyen — after a 45-minute demonstration — that the concept was “transformative” and “not since Google have we seen this.”

Throwing $25 million at the company was supposed to accelerate five years of development into one, which would be achieved by hiring the “best-of-the-best engineers who will rapidly iterate and advance this terrific product.”

Apple rarely talks about its acquisitions, but Color may spill the beans, should there be any truth to this new rumor.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

iPad mini nudges closer to reality, leaked inventory shows pricing

MobileGeeks.de has got hold of an alleged inventory photo from German electronics retailer MediaMarkt concerning the pricing, storage capacity and colors of the yet unannounced iPad mini.

According to the leaked image the iPad mini will be offered in Black and White with storage options ranging from 8 GB to 64 GB, Wi-Fi only or Wi-Fi and Cellular with prices starting from €249.

The iPad mini Wi-Fi variants are €249 for the 8 gig version, €349 for 16 GB, €449 earns you a 32 gig model and €549 for the 64 GB one. If you want all the trimmings just add another €100 to the quoted prices to receive a cellular option.

These prices are obviously meant to put the iPad mini at odds with its most direct competitors the Asus Nexus 7 and Amazon’s Kindle Fire HD. The Google pureblood offers 16 GB (and even rumored 32GB) of storage for the price of an 8 GB iPad mini (€249), while Amazon gives you 32 GB worth of storage on a Kindle Fire HD for the same asking price.

I’m rather disappointed that the iPad mini would be only 100 euro cheaper than the equivalent 10-inch iPad configurations. Unfortunately, Apple continues the trend of heavily overpricing storage. A 16GB iPad mini would have made lots of sense at around the €250 euro mark.

Still, things could wind up totally different so stay tuned for the unconfirmed October 23 event at which Apple could make the iPad mini official.

MobileGeeks seems to be down at the moment, but still, you will find a link to their article below.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

1 in 10 Viewers Watched Debates on TV Plus 1 Additional Screen

Image credit: Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo

 Take a look at the constant stream of tweets during the debates (there were 10 million within two hours of the first debate between Obama and Romney), and it’s  obvious that not only are people watching the feuding candidates on TV but  also on their phones, computers  or tablets.

According to a study released by the Pew Research Center for the Press and the People, 85 percent of those who tuned in to the debate last week watched  it on live TV, but 11 percent  followed it online, either on a computer, phone or tablet. That means that one in 10 Americans used the two- or double-screen approach, watching TV while also holding a mobile device (phone or tablet) or computer.

Most of those who were following online were younger. Thirty-two percent of those younger than 40 said they tracked the debate online. The post-debate survey was conducted after the first presidential debate in a series of phone interviews with a national sample of 1,006 adults.

Pew also has some interesting stats when it comes to the social media activity. Only one-third of that 5 percent who followed the debates online said they shared their reactions online via Facebook  or Twitter. Interestingly, there wasn’t a major difference along party lines in technology usage.

More details on the survey can be found on the Pew website, but it’s pretty clear that while the majority continues to stick to the boob tube for these major political events, the smaller, more portable screens are starting to provide another avenue for at least 10 percent.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Tiny Dino With Fangs ID’ed 30 Years After Discovery

Image credit: Photo and sculpting by Tyler Keillor

If you’re at a loss when it comes to a Halloween costume, paleontologist Dr. Paul C. Sereno has a suggestion: try a new rare, miniature dinosaur species called pegomastax.

“The pegomastax is a cutie,” Sereno, a professor at the University of Chicago, told ABC News today. “I would like to see people wearing pegomastax masks. … They have fangs — canines in the lower and upper jaw. It’s perfectly suitable for a Halloween mask.”

Sereno, also a National Geographic Society explorer-in-residence, released a report today in the journal ZooKeys, about the pegomastax and its heterodontosaur family, what he called ” a weird group of herbivores with canines.”

“The significance of the work is lifting the veil on the ‘punk-size’ dinosaur,” Sereno said.

He said that pegomastax, meaning “thick jaw, short snout,” was the size of a small cat and looked like a parrot — “an unusual parrot albeit with fangs.” He said it had two legs and lived in the Jurassic era and start of the Cretaceous era.

Heterodontosaurus fossils have been found as far apart as Argentina, China and England.

In his report today, Sereno determined that the fangs or canines were “display structures” and good for nipping kin or fending off enemies. He disputed theories that they used the fangs to tear at meat, saying they were strict herbivores.

Sereno also explained that while the dinosaur dwarfs species had evolved from larger dinosaurs, heterodontosaurs were always small and some even got smaller by half.

Sereno first encountered the pegomastax 30 years ago as a graduate student visiting Harvard. At the time, he was working with professor Alfred Crompton, who is now retired but had discovered the heterodontosaurus species while collecting specimens from South Africa during the 1960s.

“My eyes lit up,” he said of his pegomastax discovery in 1983. “It was a new species. I left it there. After photographing it and studying it, I took a chance. … I didn’t sort of anticipate it would be that interesting.”

With newly found bones piling up, according to Sereno, he left the specimen encased in a block on a shelf. He said that years later, while  compiling notes on the heterodontosaur fossils he’d encountered in his explorations, he remembered the pegomastax.

By then it was back in South Africa, though, and part of a museum collection. He said the last time he’d seen it was three years.

Sereno said he was still digging deep into the other dinosaur fossils that he’d discovered over time in the field and like pegomastax, not in the field.

“I got overwhelmed with life in the fast lane. … You get buried. Which one do you name?” he told ABC News today. “You just can’t get to it all. [You say to yourself]: ‘I’m just not going to name this one.’”

“Goes to show: Things can be found on museum shelves for the next generation,” he said.

Image credit: Paul Sereno and Carol Abraczinskas

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Nokia Lumia 510 shaky hands-on video surfaces

The Nokia Lumia 510 has obviously overcome its camera shyness, and after posing for a live photo earlier today, is now featuring in a hands-on video.

Unfortunately, the author obviously didn’t have the best camera at hand, so the video doesn’t reveal too much, but is at least yet another proof that the Lumia 510 is on the way. Plus we got some comments from the guy who got to handle the Lumia 510 and he says that the smartphone looks just like the Lumia 610, albeit lighter and slightly bigger.

The Nokia Lumia 510 is tipped to be the cheapest Windows Phone-running smartphone with an initial price tag of $150. Naturally, it targets the entry level phone market and features a 4-inch display, 4GB of internal memory and 256MB of RAM.

Here’s the video itself.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Twitter roadkill: Photo-sharing apps ousted today, who’s next?

Photo-sharing sites get the boot as Twitter continues to tighten things up.

Earlier this month, Twitter officially unveiled its new API. After months of talking about talking about new restrictions for third party developers, the network finally anted up and put things in specific terms. The short of it: Developers have until March 5 to comply with the rules – which more or less heavily restrict the creation or use of anything duplicating Twitter’s core function – or else.

No surprises here. The blog post heard round the tech world late last month put everyone on warning, announcing that services that use the Twitter API to mimic or recreate the service (which, for the record, is a very vague statement and a thin line… a thin line which Twitter will interpret as it sees fit) are on the outs. And the reason why is incredibly clear: Twitter wants eyeballs on its site because it’s a media company now with partnerships and big ad deals. And if users are looking at a third party client, all that money will slip away. Of course, if Twitter would update its proprietary app with the features we’re being driven to outside services for… but that’s a whole other issue, and one that still puts third party developers out to pasture.

“It’s not surprising, it’s what we all expected,” Bottlenose creator and CEO Nova Spivack told me when Twitter officially announced the new Rest API. And it isn’t, and neither are the limitations for alternative Twitter clients but now it’s time we take a look at the carnage being left in Twitter’s wake thus far.

First up, big changes for services like YFrog and Twitpic, which take and post pictures to Twitter, are being run out. According to Buzzfeed, Twitter reached out to tell developers this was coming. (Which is something of an unprecedented move: When Twitter first introduced its own photo sharing feature, third parties were given no warning). Twitter will be removing support for outside photo-sharing apps, a change likely coming in the next issued updates – so  you can say goodbye to most of the photo-sharing services on this list. (For the record, Posterous is owned by Twitter).

“Because of twitter’s actions against devs the past year we kind of thought this was going to happen at some point, and Twitter did reach out to us to let us know which I really appreciate,” TwitPic founder Noah Everett tells me. “I understand why they are going this route since they are under pressure to make ad dollars; however, obviously we do wish they wouldn’t pull choices away from their users. The majority of our uploads come from other sources, so this doesn’t affect us much, and we’re still going forward strong.”

It might not be surprising that this is happening; it lines up with Twitter’s new agenda and photo sharing spells big traffic. But I have to question how core this is to the Twitter experience – the proprietary platform didn’t even introduce its own photo feature until last year. It definitely wasn’t part of the original Twitter core function, and it’s remained so silent about its evolutionary focus that claiming this to be a key cog of the Twitter machine seems like a stretch.

This is a big switch-up that immediately will impact users, but here are a few other specifics suffering from the Twitter ecosystem changes:

• RSS, XML, and Atom support is being ended. This is more the end of function rather than feature, and will be a developer-facing issue rather than something that impacts end users, but it’s worth mentioning.
• Tweetbot is having yet more problems with its beta because of the Twitter limitations. Basically anyone who is trying to grab the client after already having authorized it might be out in the cold until the final version is available. You can check out this blog post for troubleshooting help, but it’s possible you just have to wait.
• Big, popular sites have lost access – we’ve already covered this, but it’s still sort of a head-shaking move on Twitter’s part: Tumblr, Instagram, and LinkedIn can no longer use the site to find friends or in LinkedIn’s case send tweets to its own platform.
• Twythm CEO Ben Thomson recently wrote a guest post about how he had to rewrite much of how his application functions – the bigger picture here being that Twythm, a service that allows you to post what you’re listening to, something Twitter has no foot in, changes the way tweet timelines are displayed, so it’s on the outs. It’s just an example of how the new rules can be interpreted and hurt outside applications.

I don’t want to add to the Twitter hate-fest that’s been brewing since the company started making these moves, but it’s important to reflect on what’s happening to individual services right now, and to look at how it could affect future ones. Remember how Twitter said it was going to introduce its own fully-featured analytics client? Does that mean that applications currently doing this – of which there are many – should start watching their backs?

It’s questions like this we’ll have to keep asking as Twitter continues to evolve and interpret its own function. 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Minority Report alert: FBI launching $1 billion face recognition project

The FBI is creating its own photo database. And you thought Facebook's face scanning system was scary.

A little over a year ago, Facebook introduced face recognition software to the masses when it included the feature in its photo uploading process. And the masses, as you may assume, didn’t react all that well. There was plenty of conspiracy theory and privacy-concerned backlash, which died down as soon as everyone started talking about how the service was opt-in only. Since then, the feature has faded into the background and taken its rightful place among other Facebook-announcements-that-cause-us-to-wield-pitchforks-for-a-week-but-then-everyone’s-over-it.

But now, concerns over consumers’ image privacy have been resurrected by a billion dollar FBI project. According to New Scientist, the Federal Bureau of Investigation is launching a $1 billion effort called the Next Generation Identification (NGI) program, which will use face detection as well as “biometrics such as iris scans, DNA analysis, and voice identification to the toolkit.” The system is already being ushered in, as some states have started uploaded images (currently it sounds as if this is limited to mugshots); it’s expected to be implemented nationwide by 2014.

As all things start, intentions are good: Such highly accurate identification systems would be used to focus on criminals faster, result in quicker arrests, and potentially stop illegal activity before it happens. Of course, all of that sounds incredibly Minority Report-ish – including this example use:

“Images of a person of interest from security cameras or publics photos uploaded onto the Internet could be compared against a national repository of images held by the FBI. An algorithm would perform an automatic search and return a list of potential hits for an office to sort through and use as possible leads for an investigation.”

While current states that have participated in the pilot program have been uploading mugshots for the NGI, it’s uncertain whether this will eventually extend to include all of our images. In fact, New Scientist pointedly asked the FBI this question and no response was given.

In case it isn’t clear enough, what we very possibly have in the works here is a national civilian photograph database. Right now, the FBI hasn’t reached that far, but it’s very easy to assume it will – and it’s all legal under the US Privacy Act.

Before you start pointing fingers at Facebook and user-facing (pun intended) face recognition software companies out there (think Face.com – now Facebook-owned – and Lambda Labs), consider the amount of state and federal operations that have your images. Your license, your passport, your public transportation ID… it goes on and on. If the government wants to harness image identification, it can and it will, and it won’t have to rely on social networks for help. That said, our increasing comfort with putting our likenesses all over the Internet is only making it easier for this type of system to be enacted. 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Revenge over Facebook photo sparks U.S. Airways bomb hoax

Desperate to avenge the honor of his girlfriend, a Philadelphia man stupidly called in an airport bomb threat over a racy Facebook photo.

Detailed on the NBC News affiliate in Chicago earlier today, 26-year-old Kenneth W. Smith was released from jail this afternoon after being arraigned in federal court on a charge of misleading police regarding a fake bomb threat. On Thursday morning, Smith used a public pay phone at 7:20 a.m. to call Philadelphia police and identify himself as George Michaels. Smith claimed that he had knowledge of a bombing plot regarding a passenger of a flight within the Philadelphia International Airport. Smith stated that a 29-year-old man named Christopher Shell was going to smuggle a liquid explosive past airport security. At the time of the call, it’s likely that Shell was preparing to board the plane as his US Airways flight was scheduled to leave at 8:06 a.m. destined for Dallas-Fort Worth.

As the authorities rushed to located Shell, US Airways flight 1267 took off and wasn’t notified of the situation until 8:22 a.m. At this point, the plane was ordered back to the Philadelphia International Airport.

According to CBS News in New York, Shell posted on Facebook as the plane touched down at the airport. His status message said “I’m pretty disappointed in US Airways currently. We just spent a half hour in the air to be notified that the plane “has technical difficulties” and had to fly back! Flight 1267 CANCELED.”

Heavily armed federal officers boarded the plane and ordered Shell off the plan at gunpoint. Regarding the removal of Shell, Philadelphia Police Chief Inspector Joe Sullivan stated “He was obviously very alarmed as I would be if, if heavily armed police officers entered a plane to take me off. He was certainly stunned.” Once Shell was off the plane, he and his luggage was searched for any trace of an explosive material, but nothing was found. During a conversation with the authorities, Shell guessed that the person that called in the threat could have been Smith. Shell was not charged and was allowed to take a later flight to the Dallas-Fort Worth area in order to visit his family.

When police visited Smith’s workplace and questioned him about the incident, Smith admitted to placing the call in order to get back at Shell for posting a compromising picture on Facebook of Smith’s current girlfriend. The woman in question was also Shell’s ex-girlfriend.

Smith had hatched the scheme with friends on Wednesday night and attempted to disguise his identity by giving the police a fake address and phone number during the Thursday morning call. After costing taxpayers more than $10,000, Smith was charged with “intent to convey false and misleading information” and he now faces up to ten years in federal prison in addition to a $250,000 fine if convicted.

As an added twist, Christopher Shell’s unwanted notoriety caused the Dallas police department to take notice. After Shell landed at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport on late Thursday, he was immediately taken into police custody on outstanding warrants over two drug possession charges. Shell was jailed in Collin County near the Dallas area and was being held on a $3,000 bond. Shell is attempting to raise money with interviews about his story using a new, public Facebook status update.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Windows Phone 8 camera interface to support pinch zooming and third-party addons

Adding pinch-zooming to the camera interface is nothing to shout home about, but the addition of third-party plugins certainly is. All smartphone users have their favorite photo apps, but imagine having them all inside the main camera interface. That’s what the new camera lenses feature on Windows Phone 8 promises.

As Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore demoed today, when you install a new camera-centric app from the Marketplace, it integrates as a sort of a lens, an add-on inside your main camera app. So when you start the camera, you have all the special effects, panoramas and image manipulation tricks, in one place.

I love using all sorts of camera apps on my iPhone. Of course, I have several favorites, and I use them interchangeably. They all do the job of taking pictures just fine, but each comes with its own set of nice little features or filters so I just can’t pick a single all-time favorite. Of those, the standard vanilla camera app on the iPhone is the least feature-rich, but unfortunately, it’s the quickest to launch of all, thanks to the always present lockscreen shortcut.

So Microsoft has achieved something I’ve long thought is quite overdue both on iOS and Android – the capability of enhancing the stock camera app with new features via plugins. Some examples shown on the stage by Joe Belfiore include Bing Vision, CNN’s iReport plugin, a regular Panorama plugin, a Photosynth plugin, which lets you take 360-degree panoramas, or even a plugin, called Blink, which lets snaps multiple portrait shots and automatically suggests the one with best facial expression.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Vivogig brings its concert photo-sharing app out of beta: Location, song preview, hashtags, and more

Originally introduced at SXSW, Vivogig brings its concert-focused photo app to the massive in a much more complete package.

Last year at SXSW, Vivogig released its concert photo-sharing platform just before the beginning of the festival’s Music Week. Admittedly, the launch was pushed out the door in order to make the show, and founders Tanner Moehle and Daniel Senyard both explained to be what I was seeing was a very surface version of what they hoped to do with it.

Now, the team is ready to push a big update that will enable a whole new host of functionality and features that the currently dead-simple beta version of Vivogig hasn’t had up to this point. Now the app will include a find your friends tool, location stamping, an upgraded interface, big, screen-filling photos in the stream, song previews via iTunes integration, hashtags, and the ability to follow other users as well as featured artists and a VIP section with behind-the-scenes content from performers.

Other improvements include a streamlined shooting experience, making it faster to shoot and share, “So you’re spending as little time as possible looking down at your phone,” the team tells me, something they also emphasized back in March. The fun and fancy of Instagram is the filter-choosing process, but that also means you’re stuck staring at a screen instead of, say, a concert. This is what Vivogig wants to prevent, while still creating a concert-focused photo experience.

Niche? Absolutely – but any good Instagram addict knows that concerts and events are some of the most popular photos shared on the application.

Given its position, I had to ask Vivogig if there we’re Instagram-like filter plans in the pipeline. Last time I asked this question, the duo spoke about getting eyes off screens and on the stage, but Moehle says that if they do choose to introduce filters, they’ll do it differently. “Something that shows off the lighting,” he says.

And what about video? Given that Vivogig is focused on social, live performances, and media, you’d imagine that the undeniably hot (and confusing) social video market might hold some intrigue for the startup. But you’d be wrong – for all the reasons critics keep bringing up: That even powerful smartphones can’t compete when it comes to A/V. “We didn’t find one band that like the idea of crowd-sourced video,” veteran music industry exec and chief strategy officer for Vivogig Raymond McGlamery tells me. “Labels will want their performance rights the minute we start uploading videos – they will pull stuff like that down.” Clearly, video and audio quality suffer when taken from a smartphone and bands and their management don’t want anything less than the best circulating out there. “Even as video gets better and better, audio won’t ever be able to get there from a stationary source that you can still make phone calls from,” McGlamery points out.

Since Vivogig’s initial launch in Austin, the startup has managed to raise 300,000 and is closing its angel round now. The partnerships Moehle and Senyard talked to me about at the time are still in the works, and together with McGlamery (formerly of Ticketmaster and Warner Bros), to talk with venues, media companies, labels, and managers about using Vivogig as a means to promotion. Specifically, McGlamery mentions concert hall holding contests for best user-taken photos, and getting bands to directly promote using Vivogig and weaving their into their branding. Of course, before this next phase is fully launched, the team wants to solidify the app itself.

“The original is great and it works, but it doesn’t have the functionality that will benefit people we’re talking to and we’ll have some big announcements in that department soon,” McGlamery says. 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Human Immortality in 33 Years Claims Dmitry Itskov’s 2045 Initiative

Twentieth Century Fox/AP Photo

Although James Cameron’s “Avatar” took place more than 140 years into the future, a Russian billionaire has teamed with  dozens of scientists to lay out a plan that would use avatars to transfer human consciousness into an artificial form. The goal:  human immortality by 2045.

The 2045 Initiative, a life-extension project founded by 31-year-old Russian billionaire Dmitry Itskov in February 2011, offers a timeline for immortality over the next 33 years. Beginning with remotely controlled robotic avatars and re-creating the human brain through computer models, the end result would be human immortality in the form of holographic avatars.

The 2045 Initiative, which has  had a major social media blitz, brought together 30 top Russian scientists to develop the “imortal” technology, laying out  the plan for human immortality on its website.

“The first phase  is to create a humanoid robot dubbed ‘avatar,’ and a state-of-the-art brain-computer interface system. The next phase consists of creating a life-support system for the human brain and connect it to the ‘avatar.’ The final phase … is to create an artificial brain in which to transfer the original individual consciousness into,” reads the plan.

Got that?

Here’s the 2045 Initiative’s timeline for this feat:  

2015 – 2020: A robotic copy of a human body remotely controlled by a brain-computer interface

2020 – 2025: An avatar is created in which a human brain can be transplanted at the end of  life

2030 – 2035: An avatar that  can now contain an artificial brain in which a human personality can be transferred at the end of  life

 2040 – 2045:  A holographic avatar emerges

In addition to taking the Internet by storm, the 2045 Initiative has  also launched its own political party, called Evolution 2045, pushing a  new strategy for human development. The Russia-based party takes a global approach, encouraging other countries to follow in its footsteps “not in the arms race, but in the race for building a bright future for mankind.”

Last  month Itskov appealed to members of the Forbes World’s Billionaires List, urging  them  to take heed of  the “vital importance of funding scientific development in the field of cybernetic immortality and the artificial body.

“Contributing to cutting-edge innovations in the fields of neuroscience, nanotechnology and android robotics is more than building a brighter future for human civilization. [It's also] a wise and profitable business strategy that will create a new and vibrant industry of immortality — limitless in its importance and scale. This kind of investment will change every aspect of business as we know it,”  read Itskov’s open letter.

Itskov plans to host a Global Future Congress meeting next year in New York. A previous event was held last February in Moscow.

This  massive hypothetical technology would give the “new” mankind amazing survival abilities, according to the Initiative.

“The new human being will receive a huge range of abilities and will be capable of withstanding extreme external conditions easily: high temperatures, pressure, radiation, lack of oxygen,” claims the Initiative on its website.

And according to a slick video produced by the 2045 Initiative, once the hologram-like avatar reinvents mankind’s scientific and social structure, war and violence will go by the wayside as “spiritual self-improvement” becomes mankind’s primary goal.

But what about the average Joe who  just wants to live forever?

The cost of these avatars should be on par with that of an automobile, the Initiative’s website assures, as soon as mass production begins.

So start saving up.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

San Diego Zoo’s Baby Panda Has First Checkup

                                                                Image credit: Ken Bohn/San Diego Zoo/AP Photo

A tiny, unnamed baby panda, just 25 days old, had its first check up exam on Thursday and passed with flying colors.

Zoo veterinarians were able to evaluate the cub’s overall health but were only given a few minutes to do so in order to not cause the mother, Bai Yun, any stress.

“The exam was very short, just about three minutes,” said Victoria Girdler, a senior keeper in the panda area, who was present for the exam. “It was the first one, so we just wanted to do a quick check of fingers, toes, weight, eyes.”

And in just three minutes, the zoo veterinarians deemed it was a healthy baby cub, weighing just over a pound.

“We’re still not sure of the gender yet,” Girdler said. “For that, we have to check a couple of times over the next few exams.”

Before they could conduct the exam, the team of vets and keepers had to make sure the cub was ready to be taken away from its mother.

“One of the things keepers do to make sure it stays calm is take a blanket rubbed in mama’s smell and set it under the baby so it is comfortable.”

The team had to make sure Bai Yun was ready for the exam, too.

“What we did was watch to see when Bai Yun would go out of the den to eat on a regular basis,” Girdler said. “We had seen her come out of the den to eat at that same time over the past few days, so we knew she was comfortable enough to leave the baby. We practiced closing the door a few times for a minute here and there and she showed all the signs of being ready.”

As soon as Bai Yun indicated that she wasn’t happy, the exam ended.

“It made a cry out, which Bai Yun did hear, which is why the exam was pretty short,” Girdler said. “If there were any signs of her being uncomfortable, we made sure to put it back in the den with mama.”

But even though it caused interruption, the cause meant a healthy cub.

“A good cry means that the lungs are doing well, too,” Girdler said. Just one more sign that baby panda is healthy.

“Bai Yun is such a great mom,” Girdler said. “She snuggles, she bonds with it, she cleans it and takes care of it. It’s an amazing bond to see.”

There are only roughly 1,600 giant pandas left in the world. The San Diego Zoo is just one of four zoos in the U.S. to have pandas.

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Introducing Instagram 3.0: Photo Maps

Instead of delivering new filtering options with the next version of Instagram (don’t worry, those are also in-the-works), the popular photo-editing tool creators have decided to take what’s become one of the world’s most popular apps in a whole new direction. Says Instagram CEO, Kevin Systrom, “Instagram 2.0 with its new filters, etc. was all about the user’s production experience. Instagram 3.0 is about a new kind of browser experience, Photo Maps.”

With the new version, Instagram developers hope to create a more narrative experience for users. Up until now, users have uploaded their shots and their shots alone – with no real background, story or structure to go along with the images. Now, however, a new kind of location data will serve towards creating a unique map of the pictures and thereby allow users to express their stories-through-pictures more lucidly (and more interestingly). Users will even be able to extract photos from the past, tack on a location to the photo and essentially revive it with a whole lot more chutzpah. Sound a lot like Facebook’s Timeline? It just may be – in fact, word through the tech journalist grapevine is that this strategy may in fact be a mobile-based rebuttal to the giant social network’s new format, since Instagram 3.0 will be available on both iOS and Android phones.

Photo Maps will allow users to organize their life-stories by geo-tagging the images they upload – the map will then be displayed on a user’s profile. Says Systrom, “In the beginning, social media was thought of as this ephemeral medium — you put something out in the world and it falls off people’s feeds in an hour or two. But really photos get more valuable as time goes on, they become points for nostalgia…up until not, we made it too difficult to access [the old photos]…We want to let you browse through [them] in a fast…manner, and we realized that the way to organize them wasn’t time, but [location].”

In addition to Photo Maps, Instagram 3.0 delivers a revamped Explore tags and user profiles and hashtag and location pages. Users will notice larger photo grids, never-before-offered infinite scrolling, and the ability to report comments as abuse or spam, which is key since Instagram has reportedly had some major issues in the spam department as it has grown. Not long ago, the company also added likes and comments to a chic, updated interface as well.

How exactly does it work? After a user approves his or her photos, a new Photo Map browsing mode shows up on each profile you follow (which means yours, too). The new mode will appear nest to Grid mode and List mode. When a user taps on the Photo Map, he is launched into a map view which organizes snapshots by location. Zoom in, and the shots are divided into more specific groupings according to deeper location.

Ready for it? You can download the new update here:

The writer of this article, Janice Bevilacqua, is an avid content provider for CPS Central, a retailer of extended warranty solutions for electronics. Her niche is primarily technology and gadget related topics. 

Source : techtalkafrica[dot]com

T-Mobile to Offer Unlimited 4G Data for Phones Starting Sept. 5

Credit: Mark Lennihan/AP Photo

While AT&T and Verizon move to shared data plans, which allow users to share a bucket of data across multiple devices, T-Mobile has a different approach.

Today, the U.S. carrier announced that it will begin offering unlimited 4G data plans for smartphones starting Sept. 5. The plan will cost a very affordable $20 a month when added to one of T-Mobile’s value voice and text plans and $30 when added to a classic voice and texting plan. T-Mobile will offer an unlimited calling and text plan with the unlimited  data for $69.99.

T-Mobile’s unlimited data plan offers unlimited Web surfing and app usage over T-Mobile’s HSPA+ network. There are no data caps or speed limits. The plan is only for smartphones, not tablets, laptops, 4G connection cards or mobile hotspots.

In comparison, AT&T’s plans start at $40 a month for just 1GB of data to share across 10 devices and unlimited voice and texting – and every additional phone you add to the plan costs $45 a month. AT&T’s highest offering, which includes a cap of 20GB of data, costs $200 a month with unlimited texting and calls.

Since introducing its respective data share plans in July, AT&T and Verizon do not offer unlimited data for new customers. Sprint offers unlimited 4G, texting and talk for a base of $100.

“AT&T and Verizon are in the costly and confusing camp and Sprint’s offering is limited since their 4G coverage is limited,” T-Mobile’s vice president of marketing, Kevin McLaughlin, told ABC News.

Sprint began offering a limited LTE network this summer in Baltimore and other cities. T-Mobile’s 4G network is not LTE, though covers much of the country.

It plans to roll out its LTE network in 2013, though it notes that its HSPA+ network is faster than even some LTE networks in parts of the country.

T-Mobile has taken a hit in the last couple of years in a large part because of the fact that it doesn’t offer the iPhone. T-Mobile is hopeful that this plan will help pull customers from other networks, even if it doesn’t have Apple’s popular phone.

“We are trying to serve the customers and there is a lot of need in the market with Verizon and AT&T’s new plans,” McLaughlin said. “They are frustrated with the fact that they cannot get unlimited data.”

Source : abcnews[dot]go[dot]com

Instacube is a digital photo frame feeding real-time Instagram pictures

Get real-time updates of your Instagram feed on this stylish digital photo frame which looks like a life-size Instagram logo.

Personally, I find that digital photo frames are a waste of electricity. Who wants to look at the same photos repeating itself over and over again, only to manually replace the memory card with new photos every so often? The introduction of Instacube addresses this issue: instead of adding photos to a digital frame yourself, Instacube will update your photos in real-time, reading off your Instagram feed based on the friends you follow, photos you’ve liked, or just your own pictures.

The completely wireless digital photo frame looks similar to the Instagram logo itself, displaying pictures three times the size of what you might find on your mobile phones. The LCD touchscreen frame allows users to sift through photos as they’re fed to the frame in real-time, and connects to the Web via Wi-Fi. You can set Instacube to show photos of a certain hashtag so you can discover new photos in a faster pace of updates. To “like” a photo that you randomly come across on the giant display, there’s even a designated heart-shaped button at the top to give those photos some lovin’.

Instacube, currently a Kickstarter project, aims to not only market as a home decor item, it also wants companies to start embracing the technology in their businesses. For example, a clothing store could advertise a certain hashtag and for every photo a customer uploads with that keyword, their pictures would display in the store’s Instacube. These photos can be entered as part of a contest or campaign to promote brand visibility. This possibility of branding and interactivity makes Instacube not only your average digital frame, it might actually be fun to play with.

Instacube has 4GB of internal memory — should you want to display your own pictures — runs in 256GB of RAM, and has a 7.5-inch screen displaying 600 x 600 pixel resolution. It will run on rechargeable lithium ion battery so you can carry and move it around as you please. No word on how long the battery actually lasts before it needs a recharge.

To own an Instacube, should the Kickstarter succeed in one month’s time, you’ll have to fork up $99 of funding to receive your first edition of the wireless digital frame. These limited edition, discounted frames are quickly running out, and once they do the frames will begin to cost $149 apiece. The product aims to launch in the second quarter of 2013.

Watch the video below to learn more about Instacube.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com