Sure, why not? FBI agrees to unlock iPhone for Arkansas prosecutor

The FBI, which just a few days ago was attempting to convince the country of its helplessness in the face of encrypted iPhones, has generously offered its assistance in unlocking an iPhone and iPod for a prosecutor in Arkansas, the Associated Press reports.

TechCrunch has contacted the prosecutor’s office for details, which for the moment are thin on the ground — but the timing seems unlikely to be a coincidence. It was only Monday that the FBI announced it had successfully accessed a phoneafter saying for months that it couldn’t possibly do so — and that Apple was endangering national security by refusing to help.

Related Articles ACLU map shows locations of 63 ongoing phone-unlocking cases Justice Department drops lawsuit against Apple as FBI has now unlocked Farook's iPhone Encryption pioneer Martin Hellman talks security, Apple, the FBI and the future of cryptography

The case is the alleged murder of a couple by two teenagers, and the prosecution on Tuesday received a postponement to the trial in order to request help in unlocking the iPhone and iPod — something the lawyers didn’t even know was possible until Monday. Amazingly, the FBI agreed to help the very next day, Faulkner County Prosecuting Attorney Cody Hiland told the AP. Court documents indicate that a “letter to Snapchat,” 10 pages of emails, and over 100 pages of “Facebook records” were being entered into evidence, so the defendant’s digital footprint isn’t exactly a total blank.

If the unlocking process being used by the FBI is so trivial that it can be offered on short notice to anybody asking nicely, that deeply contradicts the narrative the Justice Department has been building regarding the limitations of law enforcement in accessing encrypted phones.

Again, the specific details of the devices (model, OS version, etc.) are unknown, as is the exact nature of the FBI’s offered assistance. Until the court, prosecutor’s office, or defender files or volunteers further information (and we’ll be asking), this is fairly up in the air.

Is Tony Fadell In Nest’s Way?

Last week, we witnessed something fairly remarkable.

Last week, we witnessed something fairly remarkable. A major Alphabet executive — Nest Labs CEO Tony Fadell — publicly shamed the cofounder and employees of Dropcam, the connected camera company that Nest had acquired in 2014 for $555 million.

In an articlein The Information, Fadell said that he didn’t think Dropcam cofounder and CEO Greg Duffy had “earned” the right to report to him directly. Fadell also explained away an exodus of Dropcam staffers by suggesting they were subpar. “A lot of the employees were not as good as we hoped,” he told The Information. It was “a very small team and unfortunately it wasn’t a very experienced team.”

Fadell may have been reacting to comments by Duffy, who painted a highly unflattering portrait of Fadell in the same article. However, Fadell’s comments and his poor performance underscore what an ill fit Fadell is for Alphabet and why Alphabet needs new leadership at Nest.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, of course. Nest was acquired by Google for $3.2 billion in January 2014, a feat that earned Fadell plenty of accolades. Worried about competition and in awe of Fadell, who’d created the iPod as an Apple SVP, Duffy concluded that selling was his smartest play when Nest came knocking that spring.

Despite what seemed like a handsome payday for everyone involved with Dropcam, the bet soon looked like a poor one.

As I reportedin November 2014, not only did Duffy’s beloved VP of marketing almost immediately leave Nest over an apparent culture clash, but numerous employees I interviewed, along with scathing write-ups by former employees on Glassdoor, pointed surprisingly to trouble.

“Everything revolves around the CEO,” wrote one Glassdoor reviewer at the time. “It’s a dangerous mix of cult of personality and Stockholm syndrome. Comments like ‘[Fadell is] the next Steve Jobs are not uncommon, while people proudly say things like ‘I’m used to Tony screaming at me.’”

It wasn’t just the different management styles of Fadell and Duffy, whose organization was one-eighth the size of Nest and who was well-liked by his employees. There was suddenly an inability to get anything meaningful done. One Nest employee described to me a “huge meeting culture, to the point where anyone at the director level or up spends their entire day in meetings, many of them duplicative meetings about the same subject, over and over to the point where a lot of people have complained.”

Things remain much the same 16 months later, suggests The Information, whose report says Nest’s culture of micromanagement has more recently led the firm to plaster its offices with the phrase “Step Up” to ostensibly encourage lower-level employees to take more initiative.

Duffy wouldn’t speak with me back in 2014 when he was still working for Fadell, but having left last fall to start something new, he isn’t holding back from sharing his experience now.

He confirmed to The Information that he was embarrassed by Nest’s products and that he’d called Fadell a “tyrant bureaucrat” to his face. In the wake of Fadell’s comments about Dropcam employees to The Information, Duffy further took to Medium yesterdayto defend those engineers. In the same post, he also called out Nest’s management for “fetishizing only the most superfluous and negative traits of their mentors.”

Asked yesterday and today to comment for this story, Nest declined.

Certainly, it has seemed at times like Fadell is playing at Steve Jobs — with whom he worked closely — in ways that seem very contrary to how Alphabet runs its other operations.

Fadell couldn’t be further apart from Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai, who is widely reported to be humble and team-oriented to a fault, or from Alphabet CEO Larry Page, who often wanders through academic conferences and engages in tête-a-têtes with prominent scientists (without assuming they know who he is). Even Google Ventures CEO Bill Maris has jokingly said that he merely masqueradesas a venture capitalist.

Fadell acknowledged the cultural differences between Google/Alphabet and Apple after Nest was acquired, telling an on-stage interviewerin 2014 that Apple had a “much more hierarchical structure, and the communications structure was very understood,” while at Google, “everyone could just talk to everyone and learn about everything, and there was much more transparency.”

“I’m not saying one is better than the other,” Fadell continued at the time. “But it’s very different. The very first day, when the [Nest] deal was announced, I got all these various individuals from inside Google saying, ‘Oh, congratulations,’ and ‘I want to work with you,’ and ‘Is there something we can help you with?’ And at Apple, it was very structured. It wasn’t like you were going to send a message to Steve for any reason and say congratulations and flood his email box.”

Time goes by, so slowly

One can understand why Google wanted Nest to spearhead its hardware efforts. As a private company, Nest had come up with its beautiful, signature thermostat and was presumed to have much more up its sleeve. Fadell is reportedly friends with Page. Not last, one of Nest’s investors was Google Ventures, which likely made the arrangement a little more attractive for everyone involved.

Yet from the outside looking in, Nest has seemingly devolved from a revolutionary outfit to an iterative one.

Though the company currently manufactures three products — its thermostat, a smoke alarm, and its Nest cam (via its Dropcam acquisition) — it has repeatedly delayed product releases and disappointed its customers, particularly given the billing that Nest’s products receive.

In one of the more visible cases of customer dissatisfaction, a New York Times reporter said in January that a software bug drained his Nest thermostat’s battery, a discovery he made only when his infant began crying from his chilly bedroomin the middle of the night. Nest’s smart smoke alarm has also been plaguedby software glitches.

In the meantime, says The Information, Google has moved forward on similar efforts, including its OnHub wireless routerand a stealth projectto create a competitor to Amazon’s Echo.

That Google has done so without Nest’s involvement must be demoralizing to Nest’s current employees, who were presumably drawn to the challenge of helping Nest become one of the world’s great hardware companies.

But there’s reason for even more concern going forward: Fadell has created a culture that’s increasingly unlikely to attract the world’s best engineers, which has always been the top priority for its parent company. (Google, in stark contrast, is consistently ranked as one of the best places to work.)

If Alphabet wants to maintain its feel-good reputation, it may be time to part ways with Fadell, or at least to demote him. He’s now had more than two years to prove himself.

What Fadell has shown instead is that he’s unable to get out of his own way — or Nest’s.

Sony spends $15 million on dealing with its cyberattack woes

Instead of announcing its financial results today, Sony had to merely issue a forecast for how it's fared in the last financial quarter.

Instead of announcing its financial results today, Sony had to merely issue a forecast for how it's fared in the last financial quarter. In case you've missed it, that's because it's dealing with the cyberattack that not only spilled the beans on much of Sony's movie business but also knocked out its accounting equipment. To that end, it's announced that it'll spend approximately $15 million this quarter to both investigate and recover from the cyberattack. (That's not to be confused with the $15 million in restitution it offered users last monthfor a separate security breach.) The company otherwise raised its earning forecast for the year, with net profits of $756 million made from October to December of last year. Sony isn't yet done restructuring, however. In its mobile business, it now plans to shed 2,100 jobs: a further 1,100 positions to cuts it previously announced last year.

Despite this, the mobile division managed to make a slim profit, which the company put down to a healthier (smaller) range of smartphones -- expect more streamlining in 2014. While Sony Pictures was understandably hit hardest by the hack, the arm still managed to pull in over $20 million in profit over the typically lucrative holiday quarter.

Sony Pictures hack: the whole story

This has been a wretched year for big corporations in the US: Target , Home Depot , JPMorgan and, most recently, Sony Pictures have all had to deal with unauthorized security breaches over the past few months.

over the past few months. As far as Sony Pictures is concerned, the problems began on November 24th, when various reports pointed to a high-profile, studio-wide cyberattackat the hands of a group calling itself "#GOP," aka the Guardians of Peace. Since then, the startling situation has turned into a colossal headache for the company. The hackers, who are believed to be from North Korea, have leaked some of its unreleased films online; revealed highly sensitive information, like passwords and executives' salaries; and gone as far as threatening employees and their families. As it stands, Sony Pictures is in a deep, downward spiralwith no end in sight.

[This piece was heavily updated on December 18th to reflect ongoing events; head to the bottom for that.]

Of course, Sony is no stranger to being on the wrong end of a virtual onslaught. A few years ago, in 2011, the PlayStation Network suffered one of the biggest security breaches in recent memory, which is estimated to have cost the company upward of $171 million; earlier this year Sony also agreed to a $15 million settlementfor a class action lawsuit from users. Roughly 77 million accounts were affected back then. But the attack on Sony Pictures appears to be more personal, whereas the PlayStation Network takedown was said to be about exposing security vulnerabilities in the service, particularly after Sony failed to act on multiple warnings from the culprits.

How is it, then, that something so similarcould happen again to a branch of Sony? "Unfortunately, not every company follows best practices or prioritizes security well enough," Kurt Baumgartner, principal security researcher at internet security firm Kaspersky Lab, told me. "I think it's going to require lawsuits and additional financial losses before companies start to take these types of attacks seriously."

#GOP

While Sony Pictures has, for the most part, chosen to stay mum since news of the breach first came to light, its attackers have been anything but shy from day one. Right as they took control of the movie studio's corporate systems, the GOP cyberattackers began leaving intimidating messagesbehind. "We already warned you, and this is just a beginning," read a GOP note. "We've obtained all of your internal data including your secrets and top secrets. If you don't obey us, we'll release the data shown below to the world." Sony Pictures was left "completely down, paralyzed," according to Deadline . Meanwhile, a Variety reportnotes Sony mentioning it was simply investigating an IT matter, but the company didn't confirm the intrusion at the time.

And it didn't take long for the GOP to make its next move.

The group went on to leaka number of unreleased films from the studio, including high-quality screening copies of Annie , Fury , Mr. Turner and Still Alice. What's more, someone under the moniker "Boss of GOP" began emailing media publications to make it clear that they were responsible for seeding out the torrent files of these movies. But this was only the beginning. In that same email, which we obtained a copy of, the GOP claimed that it had just "under 100 terabytes" of data belonging to Sony Pictures, and its intentions were to plaster it all over the web in due time.

Baumgartner says the malware used to harm Sony Pictures, known as Destover, acts as a backdoor and is capable of wiping disk drives and any Master Boot Record disk -- in other words, it can sneak into a system, completely take over and, just like that, have access to the data saved within. "It does not target consumers," he added. "There may be other issues for customers, however, that arise out of any business being hacked and sensitive data accessed."

Kaspersky Lab pointed outthat a sample of the malware showed, in fact, traces of being signed by a valid digital certificate from Sony. According to the cybersecurity firm, "The stolen Sony certificates (which were also leaked by the attackers) can be used to sign other malicious samples. In turn, these can be further used in other attacks."

"Because the Sony digital certificates are trusted by security solutions, this makes attacks more effective," Kaspersky Labs stated on its blog post. " We've seen attackers leverage trusted certificatesin the past, as a means of bypassing whitelisting software and default-deny policies."

For Sony's sake, the best thing that could happen now is for this certificate, which was apparently part of a jokebetween researchers, to get blacklisted immediately.

North Korea

A few days after the breach initially took place, sources told Re/code that Sony was worried North Korea was behind the attack. Why North Korea, though? Well, the timing coincides with the release of The Interview , an upcoming comedy about two journalists who attempt to assassinate the Supreme Leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un. Strangely enough, back in August, The Hollywood Reporter wrotethat the studio was digitally altering the film, as it looked to keep it from "igniting a tinderbox." The tweaks, which were "precipitated by clearance issues," included the deletion of a scene in which Kim's face was melted. Meanwhile, the stars of The Interview , Seth Rogen and James Franco, have put a humorous spin on the matterby releasing a number of racy picturesfrom the set -- in typical Rogen/Franco fashion.

North Korea, for its part, denied having a role in any of this, referring to the allegations as nothing more than a "wild rumor." However, state news outlet KCNA did expressthat the cyberattack on Sony could be a " righteous deed" from "supporters and sympathizers" of the country. No, North Korea won't take the blame for the harmful actions on Sony Pictures, but it is very, very happy that someone did-- especially after being extremely outspoken about its oppositionto the release of The Interview .

" Stop the terrorist film!" the attackers wrote in a message recently posted to GitHub.

But the Guardians of Peace, whoever they may be, have also been demanding equality at the company, leading some to believe that employees could very well be involvedwith the attack. Another message by the group stated the following: "We want equality. Sony doesn't. It's an upward battle. Sony left their doors unlocked, and it bit them." It added, "They don't do physical security anymore. Sony doesn't lock their doors, physically, so we worked with other staff with similar interests to get in."

"We see operational and malware similarities that tie it to the previous DarkSeoul campaigns on South Korea, which were run by Korean-speaking attackers," Baumgartner told me. "Those campaigns are tied further back to a years-long operation targeting military and government organizations, which suggest a North Korean actor."

Meanwhile, the FBI has saidthere's no confirmation that North Korea was culpable for the attack. " There is no attributionto North Korea at this point," Joe Demarest, an assistant director at the bureau's cyber division, commented during a cybersecurity conference in Washington, DC.

It's personal

Lamentably for Sony Pictures, the situation has now taken a turn for the worse. The leak of its unreleased films and scripts, employee salaries, company passwordsand other sensitive, IT-focused information, seems relatively small compared to the latest threats from the GOP. Recently, a person claiming to be the leader of the hacker group said in an email, "Many things beyond imagination will happen at many places of the world. Our agents find themselves act in necessary places." The chilling message, written in broken English, continued, "Please sign your name to object the false of the company at the email address below if you don't want to suffer damage."

"If you don't, not only you but your family will be in danger."

I am the head of GOP who made you worry.

Removing Sony Pictures on earth is a very tiny work for our group which is a worldwide organization. And what we have done so far is only a small part of our further plan. It's your false if you if you think this crisis will be over after some time. All hope will leave you and Sony Pictures will collapse. This situation is only due to Sony Pictures. Sony Pictures is responsible for whatever the result is. Sony Pictures clings to what is good to nobody from the beginning. It's silly to expect in Sony Pictures to take off us. Sony Pictures makes only useless efforts. One beside you can be our member.

Many things beyond imagination will happen at many places of the world. Our agents find themselves act in necessary places. Please sign your name to object the false of the company at the email address below if you don't want to suffer damage. If you don't, not only you but your family will be in danger.

Nobody can prevent us, but the only way is to follow our demand. If you want to prevent us, make your company behave wisely.

With the help of the FBI and Mandiant, a security firm Sony recently hired, the company's trying get to the bottom of this and find the people responsible for it immediately, and to get its internal systems back to normal -- or as close to it as possible. A recent memosent to staffers described the breach as " an unparalleled and well-planned crime," with Mandiant claiming that the organization behind the attack clearly had its mind set on destroying and releasing confidential info from the popular movie studio.

It's still unclear how muchthe GOP's act is going to end up costing the company, but Sony Pictures can't afford to start thinking about that just yet. Case in point: As I'm writing this, a tiny sound from a notification on my computer lets me know that more of the company's datais now available, including box office projections, additional scripts and, wait for it, Brad Pitt's phone number. In addition to that, Re/code's obtained an emailwith a link claiming to contain another batch of internal data from Sony Pictures, namely executives' email correspondence -- and some of the exchanges between them are far from pretty.

Which is to say, Sony Pictures needs to figure out a way to stop the bleeding, before it can get to healing.

Sony Pictures did not answer our request for comment.

Update (December 18th, 2014) :

Much has happened in the eight days since our original "everything you need to know" post was published. Earlier this week, the group claiming responsibility for the hack, known as the "Guardians of Peace," threatened violenceagainst people who went to see The Interview in theaters. Here's a snippet of the full message:

"The world will be full of fear. Remember the 11th of September 2001."

As a result, the film's stars Seth Rogen and James Franco canceled media appearances ahead of the movie's Christmas Day release. Ultimately, five major movie theater chains said they would not show the film, citing concern for customer safety. Sony Pictures ate the cost of the film and canceledthe release altogether soon after.

The Interview also isn't headed to DVD or video-on-demand services, according to The LA Times . In a statement, Sony said it was "extremely disappointed" with the outcome, but that the safety of movie-goers and theater employees was paramount.

Among the terabytes of data stolen from Sony Pictures and subsequently released are first and last names with Social Security numbers for current and former employees. The "Guardians of Peace" group claims that it won't release stolen personal informationif requested. In an effort to curb the many, many Hollywood leaks that've sprung from the leaked data, Sony's lawyers contacted media outlets directly asking them to destroy whatever data they may have downloaded. It hasn't stopped the flood of media reports citing the stolen data.

And yesterday, several media outlets -- including NBC and reportedthat US officials plan to announce today (December 18th) that they have identified North Korea as the source of the cyberattack. ( Wired 's counterargument is worth a read too.) The White House is treating the attack as a "serious national security matter," and President Obama's National Security Council is weighing its response. We'll update this post if and when the US makes any such formal accusations; Sony still hasn't responded to request for comment.

Update by Dana Wollman and Ben Gilbert.

[Image credits: AFP/Getty Images, Associated Press]

Snapchat seamlessly combines video, audio, GIFs, stickers in “Chat 2.0”

Say what you want, how you want.

Say what you want, how you want. That’s how Snapchat’s reps say CEO Evan Spiegel describes Chat 2.0, a massive set of new features launching today. It lets private conversations morph between mediums depending on what users want to show or tell, and whether they can speak up or must stay silent. As WhatsApp focuses on simplicity and Facebook Messenger chases commerce, Snapchat is positioning itself as the most vivid, human way to chat.

Snapchat is basically upgrading everything today, and explaining it all with a special Discover channel video you can watch by scanning this QR Snapcode. But here’s a quick list of the launches before we dive into what they mean:

Snapchat Stories now auto-advance , so when you get to the end of watching a friend’s Story or swipe left, the next Story in your list starts playing for easy lean-back watching that should boost view counts and encourage posting. Over 200 Stickers are now available in private chat, and ones related to text you’ve typed like “love you” or “hungry” are instantly surfaced when you press the Stickers button. ( Snapchat’s $100 million acquisition of Bitstrips makes perfect sense nowthat it has stickers, though Bitmoji aren’t available here yet) Video Notes in Chat let you record and send a quick 10-second max thumbnail-sized GIF-like loop so you can react with your face, and they play audio too if the recipient taps Audio Notes work similarly, allowing you to send short voice snippets when you’re moving and can’t type, or have something to say Video and Audio Calls can now be initiated even if the recipient isn’t already chatting with you, turning Snapchat into more of a phone You can now send multiple photos at a time in chat, and mark them up with Snapchat’s text, drawing, and filter tools first During Video and Audio Calls, you can simultaneously send camera roll photos to show someone something, and they appear translucent overlaid on the chat window Chat 2.0 lets both conversation partners toggle on the fly between Video and Audio Calls, Video and Audio notes, stickers, and text as their environment or intentions change, so users can start or stop transmitting and just listen or watch A new Privacy Center siteclarifies that Snapchat only temporarily saves snaps submitted to Live stories and deletes everything else, though nothing about privacy is changing

These updates roll out to all iOS and Android users today. For a video demo of these features plus a rant about why Snapchat won’t be easily beat, check out this video:

Snapchat 2.0 Is Not A Disappearing Teen Fad

All Human Communication In One Interface

Snapchat explains that “When we first launched Chat, our goal was to emulate the best parts of face-to-face conversation. Chat 1.0 was all about the joys of being here — when most apps told you when your friend was typing, Chat let you know that your friend was listening.” Now it’s actually delivering on its goal to be the second most vibrant way to interact beyond talking in person.

Snapchat has figured out how to pull every way humans communicate into a single interface — video, audio, text, symbols and, drawing. Instead of having to choose how you want to connect before you start, conversations can evolve on the fly.

In comparison, it makes other chat apps feel stiff and stodgy, like they’re trying to confine your communication into siloed buckets. This more natural and expressive style has always been Snapchat’s advantage, but now it’s making it painfully obvious how its competitors are more like outdated AOL Instant Messengers ported to mobile.

On the web, you were always in the same situation from start to finish of a conversation. You weren’t walking around, being interrupted or trying to message on the sly. Snapchat’s Chat 2.0 adapts to real life.

You could be texting but be on the move and seamlessly switch to an Audio Call or Note. You could be video calling but have to duck into the bathroom, and Snapchat lets you turn off video and audio broadcasting while still watching what you partner is doing. You could be Audio Calling but want to show photos from your recent vacation, and do both simultaneously. If that inspires the other person to send a Video Note reaction or start a full-blown Video Call, they can.

The flexibility will be addictive.

SnapPhone

While subtle, one of the most important changes here is that you don’t have to already be text chatting someone to do a call with them. Now, Snapchat serves as a phone. You can Video Call or Audio Call someone at any time. Snapchat even intelligently tells the caller their partner is “unavailable” if they miss they call, but that they “can’t talk right now” if they purposefully silence it.

This all makes Snapchat less of a messaging app and more a full communication suite richer than anything else your device has to offer. It’s certainly more complicated in the sense that there’s a lot more to do in Snapchat. But since all the features are woven into the existing chat interface and made to be optional, the update shouldn’t be too jarring, even for olds who are easily confused.

Nothing here has anything to do with monetization directly. But the more people swipe right to chat, the more likely they’ll wonder what’s on the other side of Snapchat’s camera, including Live Stories and Discover channels that are filled with ads.

At this point, Snapchat is becoming social media sharing and communication bedrock. It does everything, full-screen, with as little interface chrome as possible. Facebook and Twitter are filled with white-space and boring text. Even Instagrams are only half the height of your phone, and the experience is as much anti-social manicuring of your photos as it is interacting with others.

Snapchat is the closest thing to a direct window from your friends’ lives into yours. That’s going to make it very hard for competitors to dig underneath and offer any advancement significant enough to pull people away.

5 hard questions facing Oculus Rift

Today, the future became the present with the launch of Oculus Rift.

Today, the future became the present with the launch of Oculus Rift. The reviewsare in, but uncertainty hangs overhead with HTC and PlayStation’s VR headsets still on the way.

Here are the tough questions that will determine what you should buy, the distribution of power between the platforms and VR’s effect on our lives.

Should people buy Oculus Rift consumer v1, or wait another hardware and content cycle?

VR is going to happen. It’s mainly a question of when is right for most people. I wish I’d waited to buy v2 of the Apple Watch. I hardly wear it as the hardware doesn’t do enough and developers don’t know what to do with it yet. What’s the right move with Oculus? Can reviewers see past current novelty and future promises to make that call for us? Some critics are already saying Oculus isn’t worth it without the Touch motion controllers coming later this year.

Will Oculus Rift dominate the tethered VR market and we should commit to the benefits of network effect, or will it fragment amongst HTC Vive and PlayStation VR and we should wait to see what we prefer?

Between its early community, Facebook’s firepower and its first-to-market status, Oculus Rift could rule the mindshare. But it could be dragged down by flimsy launch titles or a killer exclusive on a competing platform. The HTC Vive full-body, walk-around-the-holodeck headset will ship soon with bulky motion controllers that unlock the true potential of VR. Oculus may have been smart to get Rift out the door first. But without the Touch controllers, Vive could command more early ooohs and ahhhs and the PlayStation VR’s low price could attract gamers on a budget. A fragmented market could spur more competition and innovation, but also restrict with what and with whom we play.

Can Oculus secure and maintain a stranglehold on the best VR developers?

We might only buy one, but developers will build wherever there’s the best market. Who sells the most headsets? But also, how much are those audiences willing to spend on content (think iOS versus Android)? What percent will each platform charge developers? How much promotion will third-party devs or indies get versus the platform’s own content and key partners? And how much flexibility around utilizing hardware, graphic content, adult content and approvals will each platform offer? There’s a delicate balance to be struck between profit for the platforms, attraction for developers, opportunity for the VR industry and reliability for the customer.

Rift will change much more than gaming, but is the social and cinematic content up to snuff for non-gamers to buy in yet?

Communication, film, education, travel and business are poised to be revolutionized by VR much the way they were by smartphones. But that didn’t mean you needed to own an early BlackBerry or even the first iPhone. Rift is deeply gaming-focused right now. If you’re looking to explore a new paradigm for reality more than to shoot down spaceships, it might still be too early.

When do we start talking seriously about VR addiction?

Hopefully now, because it’s coming. This thing is immersive. You’re not sitting alone in a darkened basement or bedroom staring at a glowing rectangle, acutely aware you’re shrugging off the real world. There are no edges. No way to look away. No reminders to stop. Oculus should be researching this now instead of after the first kid dies of dehydration with a Rift still strapped to their face.

These questions just stopped being vague hypotheticals. Finally, we can advance our thoughts about VR beyond the technology and toward the art, business and impact.

Hackers hijack radio stations to air a furry podcast

You don't need to take anyone hostage -- or even enter the building -- to get airplay these days.

Image credit: 20th Century Fox

20th Century Fox

In the kind of story we should probably get used to hearing, Ars Technica digs into an incident Tuesday morning where someone redirected multiple radio stations including KIFT and KXAX to broadcast an archived episode of a NSFW podcastfor the furry community. It's not clear who was responsible, but it appears to be linked to a coordinated effortto compromise Barixboxes many radio stations use to stream content for broadcasts. As we've seen with security cameras, baby monitors, carsand otherconnected devices, if something is left exposed to the wider internet with a default or weak password, hackers can and probably will access it.

This morning, our remote encoders that send audio to our transmitter site was hacked. We want to appologize to anyone...

Posted by Texas 104.3 & 102.5 - KXAXon Tuesday, April 5, 2016

Finding these devices is as easy as using the Shodan search enginethat indexes what's connected to the internet and where. According to Radio Insight , engineers needed to do a hard reset just to regain control over their own hardware. While radio stations are now getting advice on securing their hardware, it's really a warning relevant to any devices we connect to our networks.

This is Tesla’s Model 3

And there it is.

After years of speculation, the Tesla Model 3 has been unveiled. We’re live in Hawthorne, CA, where the company has just shown the car for the very first time.

Here’s what we know so far:

Deliveries will begin at the end of next year, and start at $35,000 for the base model. Base model will do 0-60 in under 6 seconds, with versions that go “much, much faster” to be announced later. Base model will get at least 215 miles per charge, and Elon said that “these are minimum numbers, we hope to exceed them”. Base model is rear wheel drive; dual motor versions are planned. All Model 3s will have autopilot hardware built-in — it’s not an additional upgrade. Like the Model S, it will have front and rear trunks. All Model 3s will come with supercharging support standard. The roof area is “one continuous pane of glass”. It has a 15-inch horizontal (widescreen) monitor in the dash, as opposed to the 17-inch portrait (vertical) monitor in the Model S and Model X. Much of the instrument panel — things like the speedometer — have been moved to the corner of that center dash display, as opposed to the Model S, where it’s on a separate screen behind the steering wheel. That behind-wheel screen, at least in this prototype, is gone.

Tesla Model 3 Event Recap

But what good is a snazzy electric vehicle if you can’t easily charge it? Tesla’s more popular supercharger stations can already get super busy during peak times — add in a sudden onslaught of Model 3 owners, and things might get crazy. Fortunately, Elon also committed Tesla to doubling the number of public superchargers from 3,600 to 7,200 by the end of 2017 — right around the time the Model 3 is scheduled to ship.

photo2
photo3
photo6
photo12
photo13
Screen Shot 2016-03-31 at 8.54.57 PM
Screen Shot 2016-03-31 at 8.55.13 PM
DSC_0005

Today’s Mortgage Rates: 30-Year Fixed Home Loans and Refinance Mortgage Rates at Chase for February 1

Chase Bank (NYSE: JPM) is a top U.S. lender, which provides several type of mortgage loans for borrowers in the United States.

Chase Bank (NYSE: JPM) is a top U.S. lender, which provides several type of mortgage loans for borrowers in the United States. Potential customers must have strong credit standing and be willing to pay 1.00% of the total loan amount in origination fees to the lender in order to be able to obtain a loan. Chase’s mortgage interest rates have been updated for February 1, 2015, which are discussed below.

According to the latest mortgage rate information, the lender offers the 30-year fixed mortgage, which comes with a conforming loan balance, at a rate of 3.500%. The loan’s APR variable is set at 3.622%. The 15-year fixed rate mortgage alternative is available at a rate of 3.125%. The loan package is coming with an APR figure of 3.269%.

As far as the lender’s flexible home loan packages are concerned, the 7/1 adjustable rate loan starts at a rate of 3.250% and it features an APR of 3.137%. Others, who decide to opt for the 5/1 ARM alternative, will see it being published at a rate of 3.125%. The corresponding APR is 3.030%.

Those considering to refinance with one of Chase’s favorable refinance loan, will see several attractive mortgage packages on offer. One of the more popular loans is the standard 30-year mortgage, which starts at a rate of 3.875% and comes with an annual percentage rate of 3.957%. In case of the 15-year fixed rate mortgage, the current mortgage rate hovers at 3.375%. The loan’s annual percentage is coming out at 3.538%.

Flexible ARM loans can also be used to refinance existing mortgages. As far as flexible refinance loans are concerned, the opening rate on the 7/1 adjustable rate mortgage stayed intact at 3.375%. The corresponding APR stands at 3.195% on this type of loan. The 5-year ARM can be obtained at a rate of 3.125% and it features 3.050% by way of annual percentage rate.

For additional details on Chase’s latest mortgage rates, loan assumptions and borrowing terms and conditions, please visit the bank’s website or contact a loan officer in charge.