Yesterday, mobile security firm Lookout announced at the Black Hat security conference that it had discovered a seemingly benign wallpaper application for Android that had been downloaded millions of times — and allegedly harvested user data like text messages and browsing history, which was being sent to servers in China. At least, that’s what was reported. Turns out, it looks like the press jumped the gun on reporting this as a major security issue, and the company has posted a clarification to its blog.
According to the post, while there is something suspicious going on here, the data these applications are accessing is not nearly as sensitive as some of the initial reports would have you believe (it isn’t grabbing your text messages and browsing history). The apps are apparently sending some potentially sensitive data like your subscriber identifier, but even then, the Lookout team says that there is no concrete evidence of malicious behavior: → Read More
Comic-Con 2010 is all wrapped up. The cosplayers are back in their basements planning next year’s attire. The booth babes are back home waiting for their talent agency to find them another gig. And the rest of us are left scouring the interwebs for trailers and video clips of upcoming shows and movies. Well, good friends, all of Syfy’s trailers are neatly embedded after the jump just for you. That includes Warehouse 13, Stargate Universe, Sanctuary, Eureka, and even Caprica. Enjoy. → Read More
Step one: Mod your Android device to play nicely with a Wii Remote Step two: Find a cheap Wii Remote steering wheel Step three: MacGyver an universal mounting bracket or something Step four: Totally disregard your self esteem and use this contraption on the subway. → Read More
Google’s Search Stories campaign is meticulously engineering to be relatable and tug at your heartstrings.
Their latest, “New Baby,” portrays the “joys and costs” of parenting perhaps a little too well, heavy on the latter. So you’re clueless and your wife is pregnant and crazy and you have to sell your precious vinyl collection to be able to afford twins, which are an “expensive proposition”? → Read More
There are few more creative writers than the San Francisco-based Po Bronson . The author of four best-selling non-fiction books, two novels, a book of short stories and many articles for Newsweek, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, Bronson’s work has been translated into 19 different languages and his 2005 bestselling What Should I Do With My Life, social commentary about the meaning of work and identity was on the New York Times bestselling list for 10 months.
Bronson’s creativity is manifold. Not only has he written hit books about Silicon Valley both in non-fiction (Nudist on the Night Shift ) and fiction (The First $20 Million is Always the Hardest) , but he has also authored best selling analyses of family (Why Do I Love These People) and, with Ashley Merryman, of education and bringing up children (Nurture Shock). → Read More
Finally. That’s literally the only word you can use in response to the following sentence: DirecTV will carry Fox Soccer Channel in HD beginning on August 11. Well, according to EPL Talk’s well-placed sources at the network. And yes, that’s just in time for the new Premier League and Serie A seasons. Thank you thank you thank you! → Read More
You know how we’ll know when we’re living in the future? When user manuals for gadgets start leaking out before that gadget even officially exists. Oh, that’s now. Welcome to the future! If you’re just itchin’ to know all the right places to touch the Droid 2, you’re in luck: the user manual has just leaked out. → Read More
Both Sony and Nintendo reported their financials today. And in a nutshell, things look good for Sony and not so good for big N. As we reported earlier this week, Sony returned to profitability in the second quarter of this year. But we now have confirmed numbers.
Sony reported a net profit of $290 million as of June 30 (it suffered from a $296 million loss in the same quarter last year), with sales rising 4% to $19.5 billion in that time frame. → Read More
If you’re familiar with lunchbox technology, things haven’t changed much since Fred Flintstone put his brontosaurus sandwich into that stone lunchbox he used to carry to the quarry. I’ve given my son probably three or four lunchboxes so far and he’s broken every single one including the crazy metal Flash Gordon one and a great Family Guy Star Wars one. It’s getting frustrating. That’s why the Goodbyn is cool. It has “easy to open ears” on top and a built-in bottle and you can keep all the foods in little compartments so nothing inter-mingles, an important consideration for some oppressive toddlers. → Read More
Amazon announced the Kindle 3 last night, and it doesn’t look too shabby at all. The most important part is the inclusion of the next-generation E-Ink display, previously only found in the too-big-for-casual-use Kindle DX. (The low price, $139 for the Wi-Fi version, certainly doesn’t hurt.) Immediately following the announcement, I saw something that confused me. For whatever reason, it seems plenty of people are comparing the Kindle to the iPad, almost as if these people want the Kindle to be the iPad. Why is that? → Read More
BGR just managed to get some pictures of Verizon’s LTE USB modem, which is apparently currently under testing. The modem is made by LG, and uses the next gen LTE SIM card. Because this is a prototype and still in testing, there’s not really any other information available at this time, but the hardware sure looks good. → Read More
Jesus. Maybe literally.
Fox News has a long and illustrious history of saying some fairly outrageous things. A story today on FoxNews.com may be one of the best yet — certainly from a tech perspective.
The post entitled “For Apple Followers, It’s a Matter of Faith, Academics Say” argues that while people may joke about Apple being a religion (JesusPhone, etc), to some, it may actually be a religion. Better, they wonder if Apple shouldn’t pursue that path. Here’s Fox News’ keys as to why Apple is similar to a religion: → Read More
You’ve normally got two choices in site heatmapping (figuring out where eyeballs land on your site), you can either buy costly specialized equipment ($40K) or pay a consultant to come into your office and use their own equipment, which costs upwards of 5k dollars. Y Combinator funded GazeHawk has figured out a more pared down and innovative solution: Why not use webcams?
Co-founded by Brian Krausz and Joe Gershenson, newly launched GazeHawk is less expensive than most already existing eyetracking services at 1/10 the price. And heatmapping, something that required custom hardware and bringing people into a lab, now requires simple consumer hardware and proprietary software. → Read More
“All I’ve done is compile public information into a nice format for statistical analysis.” So says the man who is being called the Facebook hacker. Ron Bowes, a security consultant who’s also an nmap developer, is under fire from certain sections of the Internet for creating and uploading a torrent that contains more than 100 million Facebook users’ information. The thing is, all of this information was already publicly available in the Facebook directory. So to call him a “hacker,” well, would be incorrect. → Read More
Tomorrow, Friday, is our fifth annual yearly blowout party at August Capital – the event I look forward to all year. Tickets to that event are long gone, but a handful are left for the all day conference we hold prior to the party, the Social Currency CrunchUp.
Here’s five reasons why you’ll want to attend: → Read More
For years, YouTube has allowed its users to upload however many videos they wanted, but with a catch: unless you were part of one of YouTube’s special partner programs, no video could be more than 10 minutes in length. Today, YouTube is changing that: it’s boosting the maximum upload length to fifteen minutes, giving the site’s millions of amateur directors a bit more leg room.
YouTube imposed the 10 minute restriction to help cut back on piracy (of course, it’s always been possible to simply string together multiple 10 minute clips to create a longer video, but that’s harder to distribute and has a worse viewing experience). Obviously the fifteen minute limit is still going to be irritating in some case, but it’s good to know that YouTube is actively working to extend it. In its blog post, YouTube explains why it can finally make the change: → Read More
Elon Musk certainly hasn’t been on the down-low lately. Well, with the Tesla’s IPO and then Toyota huge investment and manufacturing deals. Then there’s the lawsuits and his devoice. So yeah, it’s no wonder that Jon Favreau modeled his Tony Stark character after Elon — or so says Wikipedia.
But last night he had a friendly fireside chat with Stephen Colbert, where it was really nothing more than reading of the man’s resume and talking about his ventures. Of course Colbert talked circles around the PayPal co-founder as he tends to do. It’s not like The Colbert Report is known as a hard-hitting news program anyway. That’s more the style of The Daily Show. Click through for the video. → Read More
Google’s mobile ads are becoming more location-aware. Today, Google is introducing mobile display ads for both the iPhone and Android phones which can be geo-targeted. Advertisers will be able to check a “location extension for display” box and their ads will become geo-enabled when viewed in mobile browsers or apps. A little double-arrow will open up the ad and show the business pinned on map with two big blue buttons to get directions or call the business. Google will only charge for calls or clicks.
Google already offers so-called “location extension” ads for mobile search, but this is the first time it is expanding the concept to mobile display ads. Google says that mobile ads that offer a location generally see an average 8 percent increase in click-through rates over plain-vanilla mobile ads, and click-to-call mobile ads see a 6 percent increase in clicks. → Read More
This artful re-editing of the current available Kinect video shows us how amazing it would be if you could play Dhalsim by stretching out your neck to grotesque lengths at your next beer blast. → Read More
TechCrunch reader Saul Lustgarten checks in to tell us he logged on to Facebook this morning and noticed that the list of his friends who are having their birthday today was preceded by a crude message, reading “fuck you bitches”.
Yeah right, we thought. I checked it out on my Facebook profile and didn’t notice anything off.
Then, I followed Saul’s suggestion of switching my main language to Spanish instead of English, and lo and behold (click for full-size image): → Read More
