Digital Photography Review sheds light on the iPhone 5 purple haze issue

Ever since the launch of the iPhone 5, the phone has been a victim of abject criticism for various reasons that, thanks to the popularity of the phone, are usually blown way out of proportion than the situation demands.

One of the things that people liked to complain about was the purple haze seen in some of the iPhone 5 camera photos with a bright light source just entering the frame. In their review of the iPhone 5 camera, Digital Photography Review talked about this phenomenon, what could be causing it and how big a deal it really is.

One of the purported reasons for this issue was the presence of sapphire crystal as lens cover on the iPhone 5, which people believed would give the images that purple tint. Digital Photography Review believes that is not the case and indeed, when you compare it to the iPhone 4S images, you will see the same effect, even though the 4S has a simpler glass lens cover.

Digital Photography Review also dismissed blooming, chromatic aberrations and IR sensitivity as possible reasons, as the actual results don’t match the kind of results you’d get if either of these issues were at play. Eventually they zeroed in internal reflections and/or lens flare to be the possible culprit.

So what’s their solution to this problem? Well, as any photographer or camera manual would tell you, don’t point the camera at a bright light while taking a picture and you should be fine. With a bright light source in a corner, your photos would be pretty much ruined anyway, with or without the haze. Also, lens flare is pretty common problem with cameras and not something exclusive to the iPhone. In other words, it’s no big deal.

You can read more about the test and the rest of the review in the link below.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

The Pirate Bay latest to be blacklisted from Google Autocomplete search results

The Pirate Bay is the latest victim to be included on Google's blacklist, preventing recommendations from appearing in Google's Autocomplete.

Google has lived up to its promise and updated its algorithm to blacklist “The Pirate Bay” from appearing in autocomplete and Google Instant during search queries.

Autocomplete creates its instant recommendations of incomplete search box entries based on the most popular queries related to that term. So in fact, if by simply typing the incomplete word “pirat,” the suggested Autocomplete result of “pirate bay” means this is what Google users are most likely searching for in the first place. But now, the majority doesn’t rule, and this specific phrase won’t be auto-filling any Google search boxes. 

The update, which Torrent Freak first reported, won’t mean that the search queries that it has banned from autocomplete will not be indexed by Google’s search engine. You can still conduct a Google search specifically for the term, “The Pirate Bay” or any of its variations and the site will appear as the first result.

Google has come under pressure from international music industry groups to rid of any search results related to piracy from the search engine altogether. The first high-profile lawsuit against Google for what The Syndicat National de L’édition Phonographique (SNEP) claimed was Google’s failure to crack down on piracy related search terms including “torrent,” “RapidShare” and “Megaupload” took place in France relatively recently. The suit began as early as April 2010 and was dismissed by the lower courts, until the French Supreme Court overturned the decision in 2012. While Google wasn’t held legally liable for its users downloading pirated content, the Court had felt that Google could take measures to make discovering pirated content more difficult.

We reported in February 2012, that the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) were considering filing anti-trust lawsuits against Google for the same complaint that Google was fighting in France.

To Google’s merit, the company announced in December 2010 four changes that would be implemented to its search engine. These changes included responding to take down requests within 24 hours, the removal of AdSense ads promoting piracy, the promotion of “authorized” content, and of course the exclusion of infringing search terms from appearing in Google’s Autocomplete. Google began its removal efforts for the United States in January of 2011 and axed search terms including “BitTorrent,” “RapidShare” and “utorrent,” from its Autocomplete results.

Despite the bans, which The Pirate Bay has faced multiple times when thepiratebay.org and thepiratebay.se were also blacklisted, the site has been resilient. It’s an internationally recognized and well-trafficked site, and it’s but up a good fight against the Web’s fight on piracy. 

Worth mentioning is that The Pirate Bay hadn’t completely disappeared from Autocomplete results. Typing in “the pirate b”surfaces “the pirate bay.apk” among the recommended results. There’s also the YouTube loophole: What some of you may not know is that YouTube is in fact the second largest search engine behind Google, and the Pirate Bay shows up immediately in YouTube’s Autocomplete when typing in, “pirate b” or even “the p.” 

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Sony engineer takes apart Xperia Tablet S on video, puts it back together again

Teardowns of various tech is a popular thing on the Internet and Sony has decided to try their hands at it. The victim is the new Sony Xperia Tablet S. There’s a timelapse video, which shows Sony engineer Takuya Inaba take apart the Tablet S and then put it back together again, but the accompanying blog post is more interesting.

Things in the video zoom by all too quickly, but the blog post has photos and details of the various components that make up Sony’s latest Android tablet.

Now head over to Sony’s blog post that shows the step by step disassembly of the Xperia Tablet S and gives details on the internals of the Android slate.

Source : blog[dot]gsmarena[dot]com

Apple scam alert: Phishers looking to hook your Apple ID

Apple users have begun receiving phishing scam emails. Here's what you need to know to avoid becoming a victim.

Apple customers, beware. A new round of phishing attacks have begun landing in Apple users’ inboxes. While all the tell-tale signs of a scam are there, the busy, absent-minded, or otherwise unobservant among us could easy fall victim to this nefarious attempt to snag your Apple ID credentials, and all the financial information that goes along with it.

The e-mail reads:

“Your Apple ID has been temporarily Locked! We detect unauthorized Login Attempts to your Apple ID from other IP Address. Please re-confirm your identity today or your account will be Locked due to concerns we have for the safety and integrity of the Apple Community.”

The e-mail then provides a “Confirm Your Identity” button, which, of course, leads you to a phishing site rife with identity-grabbing malware.

Now, those of us who know Apple better than we know ourselves can easily see that this is a scam. Why? Because Apple would never just randomly capitalize words like “Locked” and “Login Attempts” or “Address.” It wouldn’t use exclamation points. It also wouldn’t send out e-mails to customers with poorly written sentences like, “We detect unauthorized Login Attempts to your Apple ID from other IP Address,” which was clearly crafted by someone with a slippery grip on the English language.

Look further and you’ll see that the “Confirm Your Identity” button leads you to: http://app2.apple.spabythesea.com.au/?/cgi-bin/WebObjects/MyAppleId.woa/. (WARNING: Do not visit that link!) Now, this URL does have a number of similarities with legitimate Apple URLs. But as you can see, this is an Australian domain, with the name “Spa By The Sea” — clearly not an Apple Web property.

So there you have it, folks. If you get an e-mail saying that your Apple ID has been “locked,” don’t click on any of the links, or provide the e-mail’s sender with any of your personal information. If you are still worried you account has actually been locked, simply head over to Apple’s My Apple ID site, where you can login, reset your password, and check that your credentials are safe and sound.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com

Stolen iPhone results in cop chase, shooting, school lockdown and finally, arrests

When the victim of a phone theft reported the incident to cops in San Francisco on Monday, they probably didn't expect that a cop chase, shooting, school lockdown and eventual arrest of the suspects (with one found in the trunk of a car) would be the result.

A stolen mobile phone usually, at the very most, results in a visit to the cop shop, the filling out of a few forms and then a trip to the phone store to sort out a replacement. But, evidently, it doesn’t always work out that way.

In San Francisco on Monday, for example, a smartphone stolen in the city’s Ocean View neighborhood resulted in a police chase, a school lockdown and an officer firing their gun.

According to a San Francisco Chronicle report, it all started at around 6.30am when two men stole a pedestrian’s iPhone at gunpoint. Using the phone-locating Find My iPhone app, officers discovered that the device was somewhere in the Noe Valley neighborhood in the center of the city.

After pinpointing the suspects, officers approached them but – surprise, surprise – they both scarpered.

During the pursuit, one of the suspects turned towards an officer with their hand concealed close to their body – of course, a move like that in such a tense situation rarely ends with a friendly shake of the hands and the exchange of a few pleasantries. No, in this case, the pursuing officer, believing her life to be in imminent danger, took out her gun and fired at the suspect, who subsequently managed to escape unharmed.

As the chase continued, police locked down nearby St. Paul’s Catholic Church and its adjoining elementary school for around half an hour to secure the safety of those inside.

Cops then tracked the stolen handset to a car with a person sitting inside. After apprehending the occupant, they also found someone hiding in the trunk, together with a stash of other allegedly stolen smartphones. Job done.

It might seem like quite a palaver for one stolen phone, but with smartphone theft on the rise, and more handset owners getting up to speed with enabling find-my-phone type apps, perhaps we’ll be hearing more stories like this in the future.

Security experts also recommend that handset owners enable the lock screen on their device and install a remote wipe app to prevent personal details being taken in the event of a theft – or loss – of a phone.

[via AppleInsider]

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com