Selasa, 22 November 2016
Online shoppers 'face disruption' from EU payment plans
EU proposals to make consumers go through extra security checks for many online payments have come under fire from Visa and other payment companies.
Consumers would need to enter passwords or codes for online transactions above €10 (£8.50), under anti-fraud plans from the European Banking Authority.
The regulator said it was trying to balance security with convenience.
But payment company Visa said the plans could be "catastrophic", and banks and retailers have expressed concerns.
Shoppers would face disruption, particularly during busy periods such as Black Friday - the annual discount day that falls this week.
One-click shopping and automatic app payments would also effectively be blocked for payments of more than €10, experts said.
'Catastrophic'
Visa warned of "serious disruption" from blocking such express checkouts, which it said now accounted for half of European e-commerce sales.
The damage would be worst in the UK, because online shoppers there were the most prolific in Europe and e-commerce was important for economic growth, it said in a statement.
"We do not normally take such a strong position on regulation," Kevin Jenkins, managing director of Visa UK and Ireland, told the BBC.
"It's just that in this particular instance we feel so strongly that the risk of rushing into legislation, which could take you back 10 or 15 years, is catastrophic," he said.
Visa's chief risk officer for Europe, Peter Bayley, also said there was no evidence the inconvenience would reduce fraud.
The changes are under consultation, and if approved, will come into force during 2018, several months before the UK is expected to leave the European Union.
Most of the responses to the consultation focused on the €10 security checks, Tim Richards, a payments expert at Consult Hyperion, said.
"All the UK banks and payment institutions are working on this. They do not think this is something they can ignore," he added.
'Unfriendly'
A MasterCard spokesman said it was concerned the "overly prescriptive approach of how fraud should be reduced" would undermine the regulator's overall goal.
In its consultation response, Paypal said "unfriendly" security checks would affect "almost any digital payment, regardless of the actual risk posed".
Mr Richards said under the plans, payments above €10 would require proof of at least two of the following:
a possession of the consumer, eg a card or phone
something known by the consumer, eg a password or code
a biometric feature of the consumer, eg a fingerprint
The European Banking Authority said it had to make a "difficult trade-off" between a high degree of security in retail payments and customer convenience.
"We are currently in the process of assessing whether the trade-offs we made achieve the right balance and which, if any, changes we will need to make before finalising the technical standard and publishing it at the beginning of next year," it said in a statement.
The changes are part of the European Commission's forthcoming Payment Services Directive 2.
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Malware is making ATMs 'spit cash'
A Russian cybersecurity firm has issued a warning about a spate of remotely coordinated attacks on cash machines.
Hacks of banks' centralised systems had made groups of machines issue cash simultaneously, a process known as "touchless jackpotting", said Group IB.
The machines had not been physically tampered with, it said, but "money mules" had waited to grab the cash.
Affected countries are said to include Armenia, Estonia, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Spain and the UK.
But the company declined to name any specific banks.
Dmitriy Volkov from Group IB told the BBC a successful attack could net its perpetrators up to $400,000 (£320,000) at a time.
"We have seen such attacks in Russia since 2013," he said.
"The threat is critical. Attackers get access to an internal bank's network and critical information systems. That allows them to rob the bank."
Two cash machine manufacturers, Diebold Nixdorf and NCR Corp, told Reuters they were aware of the threat.
"They are taking this to the next level in being able to attack a large number of machines at once," said senior director Nicholas Billett, from Diebold Nixdorf.
"They know they will be caught fairly quickly, so they stage it in such a way that they can get cash from as many ATMs as they can before they get shut down."
'Follow the money'
A recent report by Europol warned of the rise of cash-machine-related malware, although it said "skimming" - using hardware to steal card information at the machine itself - was still more common.
"The new method is being done by somehow gaining access to the banks' central systems and infecting whole communities of ATMs simultaneously, hence multiplying the amount of money that can be stolen in a short time," said Surrey University's cybersecurity expert Prof Alan Woodward.
Because criminals were collecting the cash in person, it made the crime more difficult to trace, he added.
"The classic way of solving online financial crime is to 'follow the money' - but when you can no longer do this, it is very hard to find out who is behind it, even though the evidence suggests it is a very limited number of groups that have started perpetrating this type of crime."
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Sabtu, 19 November 2016
Smart map aims to avoid 5G dead zones
Next-generation smartphones could avoid signal drop-outs thanks to new data-rich maps being produced by Ordnance Survey.
The detailed 3D models feature buildings, proposed constructions, hills, trees and weather cycles, all of which can interfere with 5G signals.
Researchers will be able to test towers in various locations and instantly see how well they might perform.
One analyst said the tool would help networks provide better coverage.
Next-generation 5G networks will offer consumers faster connections and increased bandwidth for activities such as video streaming.
But Ordnance Survey says the higher frequency signals have a shorter range than current 3G and 4G signals, and are more susceptible to interference from "even raindrops and leaves".
The planning tool will use Ordnance Survey's mapping data and high-resolution aerial images to produce its 3D models, while weather data will be provided by the Met Office.
"The character of 5G means the location of cell towers is more sensitive - so it will be very important to fully understand the topography of each area," said Ben Wood, analyst at CCS Insight.
"The better the tools networks have to help site cell towers correctly, the more likely we'll get high quality coverage from the get-go."
Ordnance Survey said its maps were so detailed, they even included vegetation cycles to determine how trees might affect 5G coverage during different seasons.
Parts of Bournemouth have already been modelled using the experimental tool, which Ordnance Survey hopes will be rolled out across the UK.
"It will be a useful tool for companies deploying 5G networks," said Mr Wood. "But there is no alternative to spending the money to install a lot of cell sites."
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SpaceX aims to launch internet from space
Private rocket firm SpaceX has applied for government permission to launch satellites that will provide global broadband internet access.
In a filing to the US Federal Communications Commission (FFC), it laid out details about its plans for a 4,425-strong satellite network.
It is one of several companies aiming to deploy satellite-based internet services over the next few years.
SpaceX suffered a setback in September when a rocket exploded.
In a statement, the firm said: "Once fully deployed, the SpaceX system will pass over virtually all parts of the Earth's surface and therefore, in principle, have the ability to provide ubiquitous global service."
The satellites would orbit the planet at altitudes ranging from 714 to 823 miles (1,150 to 1,325 km). That is above the International Space Station but below geostationary satellites.
Analysis - Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent
SpaceX has talked about its telecoms ambitions for a while.
Now, under a deadline to file interest with the FFC, the company has given a more technical glimpse of its proposal.
Some 4,425 satellites (plus spares), operating in 83 orbital planes, at altitudes ranging from 689 miles to 823 miles (1,110 km to 1,325 km).
It is understood SpaceX has some prototype satellites it will launch next year, but the actual constellation will not see the light of day until the turn of the decade.
SpaceX is by no means the only group looking to make a pitch in this market. Established satellite communcations big-hitters such as Intelsat (OneWeb), SES (O3B), Telesat and Boeing are at various stages in their own development plans.
It used to be that "constellation" was a dirty word after the initial attempts at building sat phone networks in the 1990s filed for bankruptcy, unable to pay back huge loans. But the wind has changed.
Connectivity drives the global economy and with the coming "internet of things", there is a feeling that these mega-networks in the sky will prove profitable. Not for all, but perhaps for those able to move quick enough and get their constellations launched. And SpaceX's main business is launching satellites.
Elon Musk, the founder of SpaceX, announced last year that the service would be "larger than anything that has been talked about to date" adding that it would take about $10bn (£8bn) to get it off the ground.
The latest documents did not include costs.
It suggested that the first 800 satellites would be used to expand internet access in the US, including Puerto Rico and the US Virgin islands.
Each satellite, about the size of an average car, not including solar panels, would weigh 850 pounds (386kg), the firm said.
SpaceX rocket launches have been on hold since September following an accident that destroyed a $62m Falcon 9 booster and a $200m Israeli communication satellite. The firm hopes to resume flights next month.
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Apple to fix iPhone 6 Plus 'touch disease' for a fee
Apple has started offering a service to fix a fault on iPhone 6 Plus phones known as "touch disease".
Touchscreens on smartphones that have this problem gradually become unresponsive.
The fault was highlighted by gadget sites which said it was caused by a manufacturing issue that meant some screen controller chips became loose.
Apple was criticised by one expert who said it was the phonemaker's responsibility to fix it.
Apple is charging $149 in the USA for the service that will only be available on phones that are "in working order".
Loose chips
In a statement on its website, Apple said it had "determined" that displays on some iPhone 6 Plus handsets flickered or became unresponsive if the device was dropped several times on a hard surface and was then subjected to "further stress".
An iPhone 6 Plus suffering this problem, which worked and did not have a cracked or broken screen, was eligible for the repair programme, it said.
The service is available worldwide and costs £146.44 in the UK.
Apple said that customers who had already paid to get their phone cured of "touch disease" should get in touch to be repaid for the amount they spent beyond the programme fee.
The repair programme will run for five years beyond the initial date on which the iPhone 6 Plus went on sale, said Apple.
Stuart Miles, founder of gadget news site Pocket-lint, said: "I think if it's a known defect that isn't caused by the user then it should be the responsibility of Apple to fix the phone free of charge regardless of the age."
The manufacturing problem with the iPhone 6 Plus was first highlighted by gadget site iFixit which said it had seen an "influx of faulty iPhones".
In a blogpost about the problem posted in August, iFixit said there were "pages and pages" of messages from aggrieved iPhone 6 Plus owners on the Apple support site complaining about the fault.
An investigation by iFixit and specialist repair shops found the cause of the fault was the placement of the touchscreen controller chip. Several rough knocks could dislodge this chip making phones unresponsive, it said.
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Facebook fake news row: Mark Zuckerberg is a politician now
I’ve long suspected that Mark Zuckerberg, who often refers to himself as the “leader” of Facebook, has dreams of high office.
This week, a taster of what that might be like has been knocking at his door in the wake of the US election result.
While Donald Trump’s visit to the White House was an apparently sobering experience about the level of responsibility he’d soon inherit, Zuckerberg has had a brutal political awakening of his own.
Facebook’s “fake news” crisis has had the normally stoic 32-year-old visibly irritated, and that’s because for the first time he is being treated like a politician, rather than just a tech CEO.
With that comes distrust and anger, not to mention disloyalty in the Facebook ranks and what for him must be the growing realisation that it’s impossible to please everyone.
Whether Zuckerberg was right to say fake news had little impact is largely irrelevant. By dismissing it apparently without second thought as “crazy”, he attracted a global pitchfork of people demanding that he at the very least acknowledge the potential role his empire had in Donald Trump’s election win.
That interview, carried out by journalist David Kirkpatrick, also contained one other exchange which should give Zuckerberg some serious food for thought - and may even represent the biggest threat the network and its leader is yet to face.
Checks and balances
Kirkpatrick first laid out the context.
Facebook, he said, was the most influential commercial enterprise ever created, with unparalleled power that is yet to be fully understood.
Zuckerberg himself is a multi-billionaire in charge of a network that has intricate personal data on 1.8 billion people and counting.
“What are the checks and balances that need to exist for this new kind of entity?” asked Kirkpatrick.
“Do you think about that? At the moment it seems like you are the check and balance.”
Zuckerberg’s answer didn’t come close to addressing the question. He said it was about “listening to what people want”, and continuing to give people “the power to share” and to make “the world more open and connected”.
But is he confident the checks and balances are in place to stop Facebook over-stepping the mark?
“I mean… yeah,” he said, peering out into the audience for support.
Even though I was watching via a live stream, I could tell the room took an awkward turn. Kirkpatrick moved on - but the issue won’t.
The accountability gap
The exchange had touched upon a problem that surely deserves more attention.
There’s an urgent accountability gap between what technology companies do and what the public is allowed to know.
This isn’t about giving up trade secrets. You can inspect KFC’s kitchen without knowing the Colonel’s secret recipe.
It’s about being able to examine the reach and influence of technology companies, where supremely powerful men, and a few women, are able to control without any genuine scrutiny other than what appears every three months on a company earnings sheet (and even that’s unnecessarily cryptic).
Revealing moments like the one Kirkpatrick summoned from the usually robotic Zuckerberg are few and far between. The depressing accepted reality in technology journalism is that if you give a company a hard time, they’ll shut you out.
And that’s because many major technology companies guard their work with barbed wire, and wrap their executives in cotton wool.
Interactions between big tech and the outside world are orchestrated and engineered to the nth degree. On those rare occasions, even the mildest scrutiny about anything other than the new product being flogged that day is swiftly shot down with tech’s unofficial motto.
“Sorry… but that’s not what today is about.”
Unprecedented power
So what, you might think. So what if technology companies want to keep their affairs to themselves - it’s not a public service or anything.
You might also think that this is a technology journalist throwing his connected toys out of his smart pram - and for the most part you’d be right, I’m not ashamed to say.
But what Facebook’s challenges over fake news reveal, I think, is that we’re in completely uncharted territory.
Never has any private company had such immediate power over the way we act, feel, think, date, buy, fight - whatever.
And it’s impossible, if you plan on living in the modern world, to avoid Facebook or Google.
Even if you never create a Facebook account, your browsing habits will be logged when you visit pages that contain the Facebook ‘like’ button. Google’s near-$500bn value is made up almost entirely from selling advertising, which is why they’re absolutely everywhere on the internet. It’s the scale that makes the money.
How the internal cogs of these sites work is a complete mystery. My colleague Rory Cellan-Jones’ recent radio documentary into Google summarised that its algorithm was so complex that no single person could possibly grasp how it worked.
At odds
This situation, this imbalance, will surely not be able to last much longer. While technology bosses, Zuckerberg in particular, talk about their “mission” to “connect the world”, we do know that under their watch unacceptable things do take place.
Thanks to whistleblowers and investigative journalists, for instance, we know that Google at one time scooped up private wi-fi data from homes as it carried out its
Street View trips. We know that Facebook knowingly manipulated News Feeds in an attempt to alter users’ emotions.
You can see how both of those examples could have seemed harmless - or at least fascinating - to the engineers involved.
But what they demonstrate is that what may seem a bright idea for the tech sites may be directly at odds for what is good for the users themselves.
One person in agreement with this is Zuckerberg, in 2009 at least. That was when Facebook was at around 200m users, and he posted a video message (in a shirt and tie!) saying how he wanted users to have a bigger say in how the site is governed.
A special section - FB Site Governance - was set up. Check on it today and you’ll see there have been no significant updates since 2012 - other than to tell people about privacy policy changes.
Soft power
Zuckerberg’s political ambitions, if he has them, are off to a very rocky start. The fake news row was a big test, and he handled it poorly - dragging out the issue in the news agenda for well over a week.
Had he been thinking like a politician, as he now must, things could have gone differently. The new reality for Zuckerberg is that it’s no longer okay to be an awkward tech nerd. Instead he must deal with his users’ concerns with respect, and not call them “crazy”.
There’s a lot in it for him to get things right. Zuckerberg’s global ambitions will live or die on his ability to be an astute political operator. He already played a bad hand in India, where local businesses said he was harming their chances online.
If Facebook is to hit the potential of connecting the unconnected, Zuckerberg will need to think like a world leader and engage in soft power and openness in order to build, or restore, trust.
And he must stop using “increased engagement” as the key metric for Facebook’s success. What’s popular isn’t always good, and what’s good isn’t always popular.
Zuckerberg’s record on dealing with controversy has been pretty solid, and there’s of course no suggestion he has any bad intentions with Facebook.
But this week has demonstrated that it’s simply no longer enough for Zuckerberg to deny an issue and expect people to blindly take his word for it. Even if he is right, he’ll have to learn how to prove it.
Because the message the public appears to have given Zuckerberg, and perhaps all of Silicon Valley, is that when you’re unfathomably powerful, “no comment” is fast becoming not good enough.
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Twitter boss sorry over white supremacist ad
Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey has apologised after an advert for a white supremacist group appeared on the social media platform.
The advert promoted an article headlined, "The United States was founded as a white people's republic."
Mr Dorsey tweeted that the firm had "made a mistake" and blamed an automated system.
However, according to reports, Twitter had originally said a screenshot of the advert appeared to be fake.
When the ad was first brought to Twitter's attention by writer and musician Ariana Lenarsky, a spokesperson told the website Motherboard that the screenshot she provided looked "either old or photoshopped".
Ms Lenarsky said she would leave the site until the firm apologised.
"Acknowledgement from [Jack Dorsey] & [Twitter] is great, but it really isn't over," she has now tweeted.
"We must continue to hold feet to the fire on this stuff."
The Twitter account of the group behind the ad, known as New Order, has now been suspended.
Last year, a right-wing activist claimed he had been able to promote a tweet which began "whites need to stand up for one another" using Twitter's advertising tools to target specific users, reported Slate.
This week Twitter announced new tools for tackling abuse, which includes hate speech, on its platform.
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Kamis, 03 November 2016
Xiaomi Mi Drone is Going to be Released
Also there is expected an FPV feature — the vehicle can be piloted remotely from the first-person perspective via the onboard camera, fed wirelessly to the video monitor.
The most expected feature is the ability to control the movements of the drone by the Mi Band and simply gestures.
Typically, such functions belong to the more expensive device segment, but we hope that Xiaomi, as always, will delight us with the price.
Xiaomi Mi Drone will be officially launched on May 25th, so stay tuned for updates!
Yi 4K Action Camera vs. GoPro Hero 4 Comparison
Design
- Yi 4K Action Camera dimensions — 42×65×21mm
- GoPro Hero 4 dimensions — 42×59×21mm
4K video recording
During the real test of endurance in the load mode (recording of 4K video to a memory card) Yi 4K Action Camera could operate continuously for 1 hour and 57 minutes, and the GoPro Hero 4 — only for 50 minutes.
Yi 4K Action Camera is a new word in the world of action cameras because this device is not only able to shoot the 4K video, but also does it qualitatively and continuously. The colors of video, recorded on Yi 4K Action Camera, are bright and vivid, and the duration of continuous 4K video recording on a single charge is about 2 hours.
Long-Awaited Xiaomi Amazfit Smartwatch with GPS
It is a casual sports style smartwatch with GPS, touchscreen, and secure housing.
The watch is also dust and water resistant with IP67 certification. It has a ceramic bezel, which is scratch resistant and comes with a 22 mm band that is user replaceable.
Xiaomi Amazfit Smartwatch runs on a 1.2GHz processor in combination with 512 MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. The device also features a continuous tracking heart rate sensor on its rear panel.
The Chinese company announced that the Amazfit is powered by a 200 mAh battery which is rated to deliver up to 5 days of battery life. With GPS enabled, this figure is reduced to 35 hours, and while using just the pedometer function, the battery will last up to 11.6 days.
Amazfit Smartwatch will work with any Android device which supports the Mi Fit APP.
- 1.34 ″ screen, 320×300 resolution
2-core processor with a 1.2 GHz frequency- 512 MB RAM
- 4 GB flash memory
- 280 mAh battery
- IP67 protection
- Bluetooth 4.0 BLE + Wi-Fi
- GPS / GLONASS
- Synchronization with iOS and Android
Yi Erida - World's Fastest Tri-Copter
Two of its three blades rotate and can be folded for travel, which makes drone very portable.
It is the best result among almost all existing drones.
At the bottom of the drone, there is a special attachment for Yi Action Camera, which allows you to stabilize the camera and rotate it for shooting all around.
Controlling the drone and the camera is possible by a smartphone app, so there is no need to use any additional controllers.
Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air — the Description of All Models in the Mi Laptop Series
Both laptops have metal housings and the official Windows 10 operating system. You can also synchronize the Mi Notebook with your smartphone via a special application, and unlock the access to its desktop using the Mi Band.
M1 Mirrorless Digital Camera from Xiaomi Yi
The China-based Xiaomi Yi Company has succeeded in action cam market with its Yi Action Camera and Yi 4K Action Camera 2, and now they are trying to capture mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera market.
This new product, M1 Mirrorless Digital Camera is made of DSM Arnitel ThermoPlastic, weighs only 280 grams, is designed in an elegant minimalistic style, available in two colors — black and gray.
Yi M1 uses an effective 20MP Sony IMX269 Four Thirds sensor which allows shooting in RAW and JPEG formats and has the ability to shoot 4K / 30P video.
Yi M1 Digital Camera is designed for people who want to take better quality photos than the smartphone can offer but are not ready to buy a professional digital camera.
The concept of smartphone-like user experience with the
The shutter speed is 1/4000 s ~ 60 s, the range of ISO is
It is a pleasant surprise that you can choose among two lenses that come in the kit.
More conventional Yi
The universal camera mount is compatible with more than 50 different lenses.
Lithium-ion 900 mAh battery allows you to record up to 7 hours of 4K video or take approx. 450 photos. There is a charger, that will fully recharge your Yi M1 battery in approximately 180 minutes.
- Yi M1 Wrist Strap
- Yi M1 Shoulder Strap
- Yi M1 UV Lens
- Yi M1 Shoulder Bag
- Yi M1 Battery Charger
- Yi M1 Camera Battery
- USB 2.0
- HDMI (Micro HDMI)
- Bluetooth BLE 4.0
- Remote Control Through Smart devices
- Wireless: Supported (2.4G)
- Sony IMX269 20.16 MP sensor
- ISO: Auto, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3200, 6400, 12800, 25600
- Shutter Speed: Vertical-travel, mechanical, electronically controlled focal-plane shutter, 1 / 4000s ~ 60 s
3-inch, 720×480 LCD Touchscreen- Camera Size: 130.4 mm (W) x 93.5 mm (H) x 63.1 mm (D) (excluding protrusions)
- Firmware Upgrade: camera firmware upgrades through Yi M1 app, lens firmware upgrade through both — app and camera
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