An anonymous reader quotes a report from BuzzFeed: A high ranking technology official with the FBI told members of Congress Tuesday that the agency is incapable of cracking locked phones and devices on its own, even with additional resources. Amy Hess, the agency's executive assistant director for science and technology told a panel of the House Energy and Commerce Committee that encrypted communications continue to pose a challenge to the American law enforcement, and to the safety of the American public. But when asked by lawmakers to provide a practical solution beyond the FBI's talking points, she said that the cooperation of technology companies would be necessary. According to the New York Times, "The FBI defended its hiring of a third-party company to break into an iPhone used by a gunman in last year's San Bernardino, Calif., mass shooting, telling some lawmakers on Tuesday that it needed to join with partners in the rarefied world of for-profit hackers as technology companies increasingly resist their demands for consumer information." They are stressing the importance of cooperation with tech companies and "third parties" to help fight terrorism, claiming they do not have the capabilities and resources available to crack encrypted devices. Congress is currently debating potential legislation on encryption.

Tekla Perry writes: It's all about the cloud and the Internet of Things, says Intel explaining the planned layoffs, which will affect some 12,000 employees. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich promises in an email today to employees, that the "transition" will be handled with the "utmost dignity and respect." According to IEEE Spectrum, "Intel Corp. today announced that it would cut some 12,000 jobs -- that's 11 percent of its total workforce -- by mid-2017, with the majority of those affected getting the bad news within the next two months. In a press release, the company said the 'restructuring initiative' would 'accelerate its evolution from a PC company to one that powers the cloud and the billions of smart, connected computing devices,' and that the company would be increasing its investments in 'data center, IoT memory, and connectivity businesses.'"

An anonymous reader writes: Recent Mac versions come bundled with a very old version of Git (2.6.4) that is vulnerable to two security flaws that allow attackers to execute code on the device when the user forks a Git repo holding "malicious" code. The problem is that users can't upgrade this Git repo, they can't change its runtime permissions, nor can they remove it because Apple blocks even root users from twiddling with some system-level programs. "If you rely on machines like this, I am truly sorry. I feel for you," the researcher wrote on her blog. "I wrote this post in an attempt to goad them [Apple] into action because this is affecting lots of people who are important to me. They are basically screwed until Apple deigns to deliver a patched git unto them."

A study published by Psychological Science and transcribed on NPR explores the science behind note-taking. As technology becomes smaller, cheaper and more functional than ever before, it's not uncommon to see people taking notes on their laptop or tablet, especially in a school or work-related environment. In fact, it may be even more common to see people taking notes with an electronic device than with a pen and paper. The study shows that the process of taking notes by hand is slower, thus allowing the information being written to better soak into your brain. However, it's a double-edged sword. While using something like a laptop to type notes may be faster and allow for people to better transcribe what they're hearing, writing longhand generally allows people to better process the information they are writing, but at the expense of length. That is to say, writing longhand doesn't provide people with as much to look back on since the process is slower.

Now everyone is different and everyone has their own formula and routine that works for them, so we thought we'd ask the question: Do you prefer to handwrite notes or type notes on a computer? Does one form of note-taking work better than the other or is it a combination of the two that is best?

MojoKid quotes a report from HotHardware: Do you worry that your significant other is having mid-day romps in your bedroom while you're stuck at work banging out TPS reports? There's an app for that, and a smart mattress with built-in sensors to detect when between-the-sheet activities are taking place, with or without your participation. It's part of what a mattress company in Spain is calling its "lover detection system." You can't make this stuff up. Or maybe you can. You might seriously question whether or not the so-called Smarttress from Durmet is a real thing or an attempt at a viral marketing stunt. By all accounts, it certainly looks real. There are two dozen ultrasonic sensors embedded in the springs of the mattress. These tell-all sensors detect the speed and intensity of motion, how long the mattress has been active, and the history of encounters. That data is used to create a 3D map in real time, which you can view on your mobile device with an app for either iOS or Android devices.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Starting today, non-Prime members can subscribe to Amazon Prime Video for $8.99 per month. You can cancel any time, you don't have to subscribe to a year upfront. With an Amazon Prime Video subscription, you only get access to Amazon's video library -- no expedited shipping, no music library. When it comes to Amazon Prime, it still costs $99 per year. And yes, it still includes Prime Video. You can also choose to subscribe to Prime for $10.99 per month. You get access to expedited shipping, Prime video, Prime Music, and the Kindle Lending Library. The move is to help the service compete directly against Netflix, Hulu, and other video streaming services. TechCrunch reinforces Amazon's latest move as being in-line with the subscription launchpad they have going with Amazon Prime: "The company can try out new services and see if they work. From day one, these new services will have millions of subscribers. And Amazon certainly spends a lot of time tracking what its users do with these new services."

An anonymous reader writes: GameStop has announced today a publishing label called "GameTrust," which includes developers like Insomniac Games, Ready at Dawn, Tequila Works, and Frozenbyte. Mark Stanley, GameStop VP of Internal Development and Diversification, told GameSpot in a recent interview, "We do not involve ourselves in the creative process because at the end of the day, that is what our developer partners are passionate about," he explained. "By allowing developers to fully focus on their craft, GameTrust can focus on all other aspects of bringing a new IP to market, leveraging our deep expertise and retail channel leadership to support each developer and connect their games with a broader global audience." According to GameStop's program release, GameTrust will "revolutionize the game development and distribution process" by way of giving developers another option to bring their games to market, leveraging GameStop's leadership in the retail channel (including marketing and more) to help bring games to a larger audience. Everything "from casual to serious, console to PC, triple AAA titles to independent games" will be supported. They'll be available through all of GameStop's retail channels as well as Steam, Xbox Live, Playstation Network, the eShop, and others. The full interview with Mark Stanley can be found here. GameStop first revealed its foray into game publishing when Insomniac Games, developer of Ratchet and Clank Overdrive, unveiled its upcoming adventure game Song of the Deep.

An anonymous reader writes: YouTube's 360-degree videos are nothing new to the site as they were first introduced in March 2015. Today, YouTube has expanded on the feature by allowing select users to live stream 360-degree videos wherever an internet connection is present. Whether it's at a music festival or sporting event, viewers will be able to view 360-degree live video through their web browser, mobile device or VR headset. Google Executive Neal Mohan says, "Now anyone, with just their phone, can have that front row experience without having to be there." In addition, YouTube has also launched spatial audio for on-demand YouTube videos. "Just as watching a concert in 360 degrees can give you an unmatched immersive experience, spatial audio allows you to listen along as you do in real life, where depth, distance and intensity all play a role," according to the YouTube blog post. If you have an Android device, you can test out spatial audio from this playlist. YouTube's announcement comes one week after Facebook announced its plans to get more serious about 360-degree videos. They are opening up their Live Video feature to developers to allow developers to integrate live streaming into third-party apps.

An anonymous reader writes: You want to hear a staggering statistic? Netflix has more than twice as many U.S. subscribers as Comcast. Netflix USA writes, "According to [Comcast's] Q4 report, Comcast ended 2015 with 22,347,000 video subscribers. Netflix's own shareholder report listed their U.S. membership base at 44,740,000 strong. That's 100.2% more than Comcast -- a staggering statistic." It's impressive to see how quick the Netflix subscriber base has grown just in the past five years from around 20 million subscribers to nearly 45 million subscribers. What's also interesting to reflect on is the two different business models. Netflix USA writes, "Netflix makes its money off of a lot of subscribers paying about $10 a month each, while Comcast charges far fewer customers far more."

An anonymous reader writes: In the latest Developer Preview 2 of Android N, Google introduced new "Launcher shortcuts" to the beta OS. It allows developers to "define shortcuts which users can expose in the launcher to help them perform actions quicker." It's reminiscent of Apple's "3D Touch" feature found in the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, which can allow for specific parts of an app to be displayed in a pop-up menu when users forcefully press on an icon or other miscellaneous piece of information developed with the feature.

As mentioned in Phandroid's report testing the "setDynamicShortcuts(List)" feature, Google offered four different scenarios where Launcher Shortcuts make sense: Navigating users to a particular location in a mapping app, sending messages to a friend in a communication app, playing the next episode of a TV show in a media app, or loading the last save point in a gaming app.
"Google says that the manufacturers who build Android devices wanted this use case addressed by the OS itself," according to The Verge, so that developers "can code for all Android devices instead of reinventing the pressure-sensitive wheel for each OEM."

Wave723 writes: A new chip by Columbia University researchers uses a circulator made of silicon transistors to reroute signals and avoid interference from a transmitter and receiver that share the same antenna. This technology instantly doubles data capacity and could eventually be built into smartphones and tablets. The chip enables them to work around the principle of Lorentz Reciprocity, in which electromagnetic waves are thought to always travel along the same path both forward and backward. Traditionally, electronic devices required two antennas -- a transmitter and receiver -- that took turns or operated on different frequencies in order to exchange signals.

An anonymous reader writes: President Obama is publicly supporting the FCC's proposal to help viewers buy cable boxes to spur competition and help subscribers save money. Basically, the proposal would require TV channels to sell their content to third-party groups, like Google and others who would sell their own devices. The president's backing of the FCC proposal is part of a broader White House initiative to spur competition. In a Yahoo News interview, Obama compared the cable box issue to earlier moves by the government to open up the telephone system in the 1980's. Obama said, "Across the board, if we have more players who can potentially participate, fewer barriers to entry, the rules aren't rigged, then you get more people trying to get your business and you get better products at cheaper prices."

An anonymous reader writes: Apple released its latest annual environmental report yesterday with numbers detailing how much the company has been able to recover from old devices. Business Insider notes that Apple was able to recover over 61 million pounds of steel, aluminum, glass, and other materials from its computers and iPhones. This includes a total of 2,204 pounds of gold worth $40 million at current prices ($1,229.80 per troy ounce of gold). Cult of Mac ran the figures quoted by Apple through today's metal prices, and came up with individual figures for copper ($6.4 million), aluminum ($3.2 million), silver ($1.6 million), nickel ($160,426), zinc ($109,503), and lead ($33,999). Last month, Apple unveiled an iPhone recycling robot, named Liam, that salvages old parts.

An anonymous reader writes: Japanese manufacturer Sharp officially launched a small robot named RoboHon that doubles as an Android smartphone. The foot-tall robot phone features a two-inch, QVGA display on its back, and a 720p projector embedded in its head. A Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor powers the robot with Android 5.0 Lollipop running on the software side of things. It can be controlled by voice commands, allowing it to walk and dance -- features like taxi hailing and recipe assistance are apparently in the works. But here's the catch -- RoboHon costs $1,800 or 198,000 yen. If you want to have access to the 3 different voice recognition technologies found in the RoboHon, you'll have to pay an additional "small monthly fee."

tedlistens writes: China-based customers of the iTunes movies and books stores reported network errors beginning on Thursday. Apple did not comment, but Apple Insider offers an unverified report that the storefronts have been closed "due to a pending government investigation into Apple's business practices." Apple first opened its doors to its movie and e-book online stores in China last September, which included the activation of Apple Music services. While the music streaming services remain operational, the movie and e-book stores are not. China's censorship laws and strict regulations in general have been tough for U.S. companies like Apple to navigate. Last year, Apple was actively disabling its iOS News app for its Chinese customers, a move many believe to be in adherence of China's censorship policies. Eddy Cue, SVP of Internet Software and Services, denied those claims.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Google is launching a new service today that allows you to create $35 custom cases for its Nexus 5X, 6 and 6P phones. There are two variations of the Live Cases: one that allows you to pick any photo and print it onto your case, and one that lets you design and print a stylized map with the help of Google Maps. Both variations allow you to select a couple of filters and other styling options to personalize your case even more. Google says there is a programmable shortcut button on the back of the case that will allow you to launch your favorite app with a single click using NFC. Once you've created and ordered your case, Google will also let you download a wallpaper with the same design.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: GoPro quietly announced its Developer Program on Thursday as it looks to incorporate its action sports cameras into third-party products. The GoPro Developer Program provides toolkits, technical information and support to enable companies to add GoPro camera connectivity into their products. There is a camera toolkit for iOS and Android apps to control a GoPro camera and manage media, along with a mechanical toolkit to attach GoPro cameras to third-party products. It announced there are more than 100 companies partnering with GoPro, including brands from BMW, Fisher-Price, and Polar. GoPro showed off potential third-party integration ideas in a video showing a gesture-based camera control system.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein released the official version of their anti-encryption bill today after a draft appeared online last week. The bill, titled the Compliance with Court Orders Act 2016, would require tech firms to decrypt customers' data at a court's request. The bill is not expected to get anywhere in the Senate. President Obama has also indicated that he will not support the bill, Reuters reports. The bill requires legislation requires communications services to backdoor their encryption in order to provide "intelligible information or data, or appropriate technical assistance to obtain such information or data." Sen. Feinstein stated, "The bill we have drafted would simply provide that, if a court of law issues an order to render technical assistance or provide decrypted data, the company or individual would be required to do so. Today, terrorists and criminals are increasingly using encryption to foil law enforcement efforts, even in the face of a court order. We need strong encryption to protect personal data, but we also need to know when terrorists are plotting to kill Americans."

An anonymous reader writes: Facebook on Wednesday said it has hired Regina Dugan to head a search-and-product-development group considered vital to Facebook's 10-year technology road map. In the past, Dugan helped shape such Google initiatives as Project Tango, Project Ara, and smart fabrics wired with electronics. Dugan will lead Building 8, a new group "focused on building new hardware products to advance our mission of connecting the world," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a comment posted on his Facebook profile today. Zuckerberg's 10-year vision for the company relies on major technological breakthroughs on three main fronts: artificial intelligence, augmented and virtual reality, and bringing Internet access to the 4 billion or so people who don't have it. "I'm excited to have Regina apply DARPA-style breakthrough development at the intersection of science and products to our mission," Zuckerberg said. "This method is characterized by aggressive, fixed timelines, extensive use of partnerships with universities, small and large businesses, and clear objectives for shipping products at scale."

An anonymous reader writes: The Model S has received several new features and improvements to help it stay relevant with the newer Model X crossover and recently released Model 3 electric vehicles from Tesla. It has a new-look fascia and adaptive LED headlights that hew closely to the design found on the Model X crossover which debuted late last year. In addition to a couple new interior finish choices, the Model S is receiving a version of the Model X's cabin air filtration system as an option, which promises to filter out "99.7 percent of particulate exhaust pollution and effectively all allergens, bacteria and other contaminants from cabin air." The Model S now has a 48-amp charger standard -- up from 40 amps -- which Tesla says will enable faster charging when connected to higher-amp outlets. Tesla's design language is trending toward a grille-less front end, possibly in an effort to squeeze as much aerodynamic efficiency out of the car as possible. What's missing in the update is the rumored 100kWh battery, which would improve the vehicle's range.