Opinions
Brad Reed
Hackers make Siri vastly more useful by modifying it to control Nest, Spotify
Hackers make Siri vastly more useful by modifying it to control Nest, Spotify
Siri is getting a lot of competition from Google Now and Microsoft’s Cortana these days, but some young hackers have just made Siri much more useful, even if they did so without Apple’s permission. Engadget draws our attention to GoogolPlex, a new hack for Siri developed by a quartet of freshmen at the University of Pennsylvania that lets you use Apple’s voice-enabled personal assistant to adjust the temperature on your Nest thermostat or to shuffle through your Spotify playlist. More →
Apple is getting ready to release iOS 7.1.1 to fix multiple bugs
Apple is getting ready to release iOS 7.1.1 to fix multiple bugs
Have you noticed some annoying bugs that cropped up after you installed iOS 7.1 onto your smartphone or tablet? Don’t worry, because apparently Apple has as well. 9to5Mac notices that several visits to its website from around Apple’s campus in Cupertino, Calif. have come from devices running on iOS 7.1.1, which 9to5Mac says is a new update to iOS 7.1 that Apple is testing out to address multiple bugs in iOS 7.1. 9to5Mac also says that there has been a noticeable uptick in iOS 7.1.1 visits in recent days, which likely means “the bug fix update will come over-the-air to iPhones, iPads, and iPod touches in the near future.”
New Google technology tears apart CAPTCHA puzzles
New Google technology tears apart CAPTCHA puzzles
If there’s one thing more annoying than passwords, it’s CAPTCHA puzzles that websites use to screen out robots from registering for accounts. However, Google has just developed a new algorithm that’s able to read its own CAPTCHA puzzles with 99% accuracy, which is obviously a problem since CAPTCHA puzzles are designed to be used by humans only. More →
More evidence that T-Mobile is putting a scare in the wireless industry
More evidence that T-Mobile is putting a scare in the wireless industry
It used to be that Verizon and AT&T could happily divvy up new subscribers every quarter while perpetual losers T-Mobile and Sprint would see their subscriber numbers shrink. Slowly but sure, however, T-Mobile’s “Uncarrier” campaign has helped reignite its growth and has made things significantly less comfortable for America’s two largest wireless carriers. More →
Educators warn tablets are wrecking kids’ motor skills
Educators warn tablets are wrecking kids’ motor skills
Tablets are terrific tools that are also fun to use but there are definitely limits to how much you should let your children interact with them. The Telegraph brings us word that the U.K.-based Association of Teachers and Lecturers is claiming that children who spend too much time using tablets are unable to play with standard blocks or write with pens and paper. What’s more, they say young children who spend all night playing tablet games find it impossible to pay attention in classrooms because they’re seemingly going through withdrawal from being constantly visually stimulated by bright displays. More →
New report sheds light on why Hulu is an absolute mess
New report sheds light on why Hulu is an absolute mess
Is Hulu even trying to compete with Netflix anymore? There are days when you really have to wonder. While Netflix is offering up a barrage of critically acclaimed exclusive series such as House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, Hulu is offering up… well, pretty much nothing that people are getting excited about. More →
One-time Bitcoin king Mt. Gox nears the end of the road
One-time Bitcoin king Mt. Gox nears the end of the road
Sorry, Bitcoin fans: You’re never, ever, ever getting all your precious pieces of cryptocurrency back from Mt. Gox. The Wall Street Journal reports that Mt. Gox, the one-time Magic Card trading website that transformed itself into the world’s largest Bitcoin exchange before it collapsed earlier this year, has filed for liquidation. More →
Sen. Franken looks to recruit Netflix in his quest to kill the Comcast-TWC merger
Sen. Franken looks to recruit Netflix in his quest to kill the Comcast-TWC merger
Senator Al Franken (D, Minn.) has been one of the most vocal critics of the proposed merger between Comcast and Time Warner Cable and now he’s trying to bring in the big guns to help him kill it once and for all. Franken on Wednesday sent a letter to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings asking him or his company to publicly weigh in on a merger that Franken says will hurt competition for online video services going forward. More →
Google whiffs on Q1 2014 earnings with EPS of $6.27
Google whiffs on Q1 2014 earnings with EPS of $6.27
This past quarter hasn’t been the most eventful one in Google’s history but analysts were still expecting it to be a profitable one with a consensus earnings estimate of $6.40 per share on about $15.5 billion in revenue. The company on Wednesday missed those expectations by posting a first-quarter profit of $6.27 per share on $15.4 billion in sales. More →
LG’s so-called ‘Galaxy S5 killer’ could launch in July
LG’s so-called ‘Galaxy S5 killer’ could launch in July
Releasing a new flagship smartphone has become tricky because you don’t want to release it too closely to new Samsung flagships that launch in the spring or new iPhones that launch in the fall. With this in mind, it looks like LG will be releasing its latest flagship device in July, according to a new report from ZDNet Korea. More →
Does BlackBerry finally know what it’s doing again?
Does BlackBerry finally know what it’s doing again?
It’s way too early to declare BlackBerry on the comeback trail, but Wired nonetheless finds a lot to like in the company’s recent investment in health tech startup NantHealth, a move that the publication calls BlackBerry’s “first good idea in years.” Why is this particular investment such a good idea? As Wired explains, it’s a sign that BlackBerry has really and truly thrown in the towel trying to compete with Apple and Google and is instead focussing on niche markets where its core strengths are actually valued. More →
Not even Tor can keep you safe from Heartbleed
Not even Tor can keep you safe from Heartbleed
So here’s some sort-of good news: Cybercriminals might be just as freaked out about the Heartbleed bug as the rest of us. Trend Micro analyst J.D. Sherry writes that revelations about the gaping hole in the Open SSL, the security protocol used to encrypt web traffic, have caused “shell shock in the Deep Web as many of the hidden services within the TOR (The Onion Router) are impacted as well.”
