Showing posts with label Technology News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology News. Show all posts

2016-07-24

This is why you shouldn’t leave your smartphone on charge overnight

You could be destroying your smartphone by leaving it on charge overnight.
This is why you shouldn’t leave your smartphone on charge overnight

It may not be a good idea to leave your smartphone to charge overnight

That’s according to the guys at Battery University who claim if your gadget is kept charging after reaching capacity, the battery’s chemistry could damage it.

This is because it would be in a constant ‘high-stress’ state, which is not good.

This is why you shouldn’t leave your smartphone on charge overnight

Lithium-ion (Li-ion) are widely used in smartphones

They argue it’s actually better never to fully charge your smartphone.

Instead, they recommend you do it at intervals as this extends the Lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery’s lifespan.

These batteries are widely used in smartphones, including iPhones.

‘Li-ion does not need to be fully charged, nor is it desirable to do so,’ they wrote.

‘In fact, it is better not to fully charge, because a high voltage stresses the battery.’

So remember short bursts of charge could better than full ones.

The concept behind the argument is fully explained by the Battery University here.

2016-07-23

You'll never be able to escape Facebook, thanks to its incredible new plane

A STAGGERING solar-powered drone will see social network Facebook take to the skies, providing internet connections across the world.
Facebook Aquila drone

Facebook Aquila drone is able to beam internet access across the world

Facebook users will soon be able to update their status wherever they are in the world thanks to a new launch.

The social media giant is planning to boost your internet access by beaming an online network across the world via a fleet of drones.

The company has revealed it has completed the successful first flight of its solar powered Aquila drones, which it hopes can bring internet connectivity to billions of people around the world. The drone touched down in the Yuma desert in Arizona after a 90-minute flight, the longest such test to date, and a major milestone for Facebook's efforts.

It says that four billion people around the world – around 60 per cent of the total population – are without internet access, meaning they miss out on online benefits including education and healthcare.

Facebook Aquila drone

Aquila can fly at heights of more than 60,000 feet

This includes around 1.6 billion people who live in extremely remote areas without even any access to mobile networks, and where even installing internet access is a major challenge.

Developed in the UK by Somerset-based firm Ascenta, the Aquila drone is the size of a Boeing 737 airplane, but despite this is able to fly at altitudes of 60,000 feet or more.

Facebook acquired Ascenta in 2014 for around £125 million as it looked to expand its flight capabilities and spread internet access throughout the world.

Aquila is able to fly for three months at a time, and thanks to its glider-esque design will only consumer as much electricity as three hair dryers, or a high-end microwave, during this time.

Facebook is now aiming to continue its testing with more research into how to extend Aquila’s flight time.

This will require the company to break the world record for solar-powered unmanned flight, which currently stands at two weeks, showing the scale of the task at hand.

Facebook Aquila drone

Aquila is aiming to fly for three months at a time

The launch comes months after Facebook initially revealed plans for worldwide internet connectivity through its internet.org initiative.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has backed the project, which has so far looked to launch in Africa, Asia and South America, where selected services – including Wikipedia, BBC News, Facebook and some local news providers – were made available via the scheme's app without any data charge applying.

But Internet.org has come under fire from digital rights groups in countries including Uganda, Ecuador and Indonesia over net-neutrality concerns, as they fear it prioritises some services over others.

Edward Snowden designs phone case to show when data is being monitored

Snowden and co-designer Andrew ‘Bunnie’ Huang’s ‘introspection engine’ knows when a cellular, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection is being used to share data
Edward Snowden designs phone case to show when data is being monitored

American whistleblower Edward Snowden delivers a speech during the Roskilde Festival in Denmark last month.

Edward Snowden has helped design a mobile phone case called the “introspection engine” that, he claims, will show when a smartphone is transmitting information that could be monitored.

Presenting via video link to event at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Snowden and co-designer Andrew “Bunnie” Huang showed how the device connects to a phone’s different radio transmitters, showing its owner knows when a cellular, Wi-Fi or Bluetooth connection is being used to share or receive data.

Initial mockups of the introspection engine show a small, monochromatic display built into its casing shows whether the phone is “dark”, or whether it is transmitting, and it also can supply an iPhone with extra battery power and cover the rear-facing camera.

It could be developed to act as a sort of “kill switch” that would disconnect a phone’s power supply when it detects that a radio is transmitting data after its owner has attempted to turn it off.

The device is an academic project and nowhere near ready for the mass market, but could still influence how consumers view the “tracking devices” – otherwise known as smartphones that they rely on every day.

“If you have a phone in your pocket that’s turned on, a long-lived record of your movements has been created,” Snowden said. “As a result of the way the cell network functions your device is constantly shouting into the air by means of radio signals a unique identity that validates you to the phone company. And this unique identity is not only saved by that phone company, but it can also be observed as it travels over the air by independent, even more dangerous third parties.”

Most smartphones disable Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and cellular transmission when in airplane mode, but Snowden and Huang say that can’t be trusted.

“Malware packages, peddled by hackers at a price accessible by private individuals, can activate radios without any indication from the user interface,” they write in their paper on the device. “Trusting a phone that has been hacked to go into airplane mode is like trusting a drunk person to judge if they are sober enough to drive.”

The project is an extension of Snowden’s work to inform the public about the surveillance capabilities available to governments around the world. In June 2013 he revealed information about mass surveillance programs from the National Security Agency, where he was a contractor, and he has since become the closest thing digital security has to Neil DeGrasse Tyson or Bill Nye: a recognizable name that can explain these issues in a way the average person can understand.

In addition to educating people about security risks, he now wants to help citizens defend themselves – if the introspection engine ever becomes a reality.

Snowden and Huang say there’s no guarantee the device will ever be more than a mockup. “Over the coming year, we hope to prototype and verify the introspection engine’s abilities,” they write. “As the project is run largely through volunteer efforts on a shoestring budget, it will proceed at a pace reflecting the practical limitations of donated time.” If they do receive the proper funding, they could release the device in partnership with the Freedom of the Press Foundation media advocacy group.

Snowden said the introspection engine was designed to help protect journalists. “One good journalist in the right place at the right time can change history. One good journalist can move the needle in the context of an election. One well-placed journalist can influence the outcome of a war,” he said.

“This makes them a target, and increasingly the tools of their trade [are] being used against them. Our technology is beginning to betray us not just as individuals but as classes of workers, particularly those who are putting a lot on the line in the public interest.”

Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin was reportedly killed in Syria after government forces were able to trace her position, according to a new lawsuit.

Snowden and Huang are concentrating on working with Apple’s iPhone, but also said the device could be modified to work on other smartphones. It’s not immediately clear how Apple will respond to the introspection engine; while it has worked to give consumers security features meant to thwart even sophisticated attackers, the company might not be fond of a device that can separate an iPhone from all networks. Apple has not responded to a request for comment.

Still, the connection to Snowden and the rush of attention following MIT Media Lab’s event might inspire others to work on devices similar to the introspection engine. Even if the tool never becomes more than an interesting subject discussed at an academic conference, it could lead to consumers having more control over what exactly their iPhone is sharing from their pockets.


Source: The Guardian UK

Police recreate murder victim’s finger so they can unlock his iPhone

It could be the crucial clue to solving a murder mystery.
Police recreate murder victim’s finger so they can unlock his iPhone

A lab in Michigan has managed to recreate a dead man’s finger

A dead man’s finger has been 3D printed at a Michigan lab in order to unlock their iPhone.

Police hope that the technology will help catch the killer who remains at large, reports Fusion.net

A set of fingerprints the police took from the victim during an unrelated arrest were taken to the lab in Michigan State University where they were used as blueprints.

Police recreate murder victim’s finger so they can unlock his iPhone

Anil Jain and his team at the lab are still perfecting the fingers

Computer science professor Anil Jain, who specialises in biometric identifiers like fingerprint scanners, created a 3D printed replica of all ten fingers.

Anil told Fusion that the police are not sure which finger the victim used to unlock his phone.

He said: ‘We think it’s going to be the thumb or index finger, that’s what most people use, but we have all ten.’

iPhones use a capacitive sensor to identify fingerprints – an electrical charge that can only be detected through a living person.

Police recreate murder victim’s finger so they can unlock his iPhone

Police hope one of the fingers will allow them to access the victim’s iPhone

But after a person dies, the tissue in the skin starts to deteriorate, therefore the electrical charge is lost.

To overcome this, Anil had to coat the 3D fingers in a thin layer of metallic particles.

The fingers now need to be tested and refined before they are handed back to the police for use.

It is still not full proof as the police may still require a passcode if the touch screen has not been used for 48 hours.

Their investigation continues.

2016-07-22

Japan to make its last ever VCR

In an age of Netflix and YouTube, the humble video cassette recorder may feel like a distant relic.
Japan to make its last ever VCR

VHS gained widespread adoption in the 1970s but was largely replaced by DVD

In an age of Netflix and YouTube, the humble video cassette recorder may feel like a distant relic. Now the last Japanese company to manufacture VCRs is closing production of the tape-recording device more than four decades after they were first made available.

Funai Electric, a Japanese consumer electronics company, will follow the rest of the world in giving up on the format by the end of the month, according to Japanese newspaper Nikkei.

The company has been selling VCRs since 1983 and at its peak sold 15 million a year, but sales have since dwindled to around 750,000. Funai, which had been making them in China as a white-label manufacturer for Sanyo, but had struggled to find parts amid a shrinking market.

The news is the latest death knell for video tapes, which began to be developed in the 1950s and gained mass adoption in the late 1970s after Philips released the first home tape recorder in 1972.

Japan to make its last ever VCR

Sony killed off Betamax last year

DVDs and later internet video gained widespread adoption, while home recording boxes from Sky and others replaced VHS as the popular way to record shows.

Panasonic stopped selling VCRs in 2012, although Sony only stopped developing Betamax, its great rival to the VHS, last year.

But while it's almost impossible to buy a new VCR in the UK, there is a thriving market for second-hand models, since many collector's item films were never converted to DVD. And in Japan, video tapes are still widely available, suggesting the VHS format is not completely dead.

Other retro formats have made a comeback in recent years, particularly vinyl, meaning several companies have begun to make turntables again.

KickAssTorrents down: US authorities seize domain name in move that could kill world’s biggest torrent site

The suspected founder of the site has been arrested and it could never go back online
KickAssTorrents

Protesters demonstrate in Stockholm over the conviction of four men involved with The Pirate Bay filesharing site

The world’s biggest torrent site has been taken offline and could never go back up.

US authorities have seized the KickAssTorrents domain name in an operation that also saw them arrest a man who is alleged to have run the file-sharing site.

The website was by many measures the biggest file-sharing website in the world. But it now appears that it could never return, since the US government now owns all of the domains that it operates under.

KickAssTorrents has regularly moved to different domains registered around the world, as authorities have cut off access to specific addresses. Those have included kickasstorrents.com, kat.ph, kickass.to, kickass.so and kat.cr, all of which have been run from places around the world.

Access to the site had already been blocked by courts in the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Belgium and Malaysia.

But now that the site has been taken offline it won’t be able to be accessed through VPNs, mirrors or any other workarounds.

The site’s net worth has been estimated at $54 million, according to the US government, which is based on the millions of dollars of advertising money that is generated through the website.

iPhone users BEWARE: This bug could steal your password with just a text message

iPHONE users should update their devices in order to stay protected from some shocking new viruses.
iPhone bug

All iPhones need to update as soon as possible, Apple says

iPhone fans should update their devices as soon as possible following the reveal of a terrifying bug that can hijack and steal password with just a single text message.

The flaw affects users with devices that aren’t yet using the latest version 9.3.3 of Apple’s iOS software, which was rolled out this week.

The US tech company always recommends that iPhone users should upgrade to the latest version as soon as an update in released.

iPhone bug

Apple has urged all users to update, and fast

“This is very high severity issue,” Craig Wiliams, head of global outreach at Cisco Talos, which discovered the bug, told Fortune.

“The fact that you have an exploit without any user interaction makes me very concerned."

The bug affects a programming interface called ImageIO, which is able to read and write information concerning any images found on a phone.

However, if hackers send an image or multimedia message embedded with malicious code to a device, ImageIO can be hijacked to give hackers access to important passwords and information.

The hacking is able to start as soon as the infected text message is sent and opened, meaning any curious phone users could be at risk.

The researchers say that the bug also affects other Apple devices, including Mac computers, Apple Watches and Apple TVs.

To update your iPhone or iPad simply head to Settings > General > Software Update and tap Download and Install.

iPhone bug

Updating to the latest version of iOS is simple

The news comes as Apple prepares to roll out iOS 10, the next version of its mobile software.

Available to download now in beta format, iOS 10 promises a range of improvements and upgrades to its predecessor, including new ways to send and customise messages, improved photo management and editing tools, as well as a complete redesign of Apple Music.

In particular, Apple has made your text messages more personal, allowing users to tweak their texts to appear happier or more apologetic, with different animations and font sizes.

iPhone owners can also send secretive messages that the recipient is only able to reveal when they swipe across the text bubble or image preview.

Apple has also tweaked how it handles emojis, which have also been given a major size upgrade to now appear three time bigger in Messages.

America's broken digital copyright law is about to be challenged in court

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing the US government over ‘unconstitutional’ use of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
DMCA law

EFF is suing the US government over section 1201 of the DMCA – the group says the law is unconstitutional, and that the Library of Congress and the copyright office have failed to perform their duties in the three-year DMCA 1201 exemption hearings

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit on Thursday that American copyright wonks, technologists and security researchers have been hotly awaiting for nearly 20 years.

If they succeed, one of America’s most controversial technology laws will be struck down, and countries all over the world who have been pressured by the US trade representative to adopt this American rule will have to figure out whether they’ll still enforce it, even after the US has given up on it.

The rule is section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, the “anti-circumvention” rule that makes it illegal to break an “access control” for copyrighted works. These “access controls” often manifest as “digital rights management” (DRM), and the DMCA gives them unique standing in law.

EFF is suing the US government, arguing that section 1201 of the DMCA is unconstitutional, and also that the Library of Congress and the copyright office have failed to perform their duties in the three-year DMCA 1201 exemption hearings.

What is digital rights management?

If you buy something, it’s yours, and – you can modify, configure, or use it any way you’d like, even if the manufacturer would prefer that you didn’t. But the law forbids you from doing otherwise legal things if you have to tamper with the DRM to do them.

Originally, this was used exclusively by the entertainment industries: by adding DRM to DVDs, they could prevent companies from making DVD players that accepted DVDs bought abroad. It’s not illegal to bring a DVD home from an overseas holiday and watch it, but if your DVD player recognises the disc as out-of-region, it is supposed to refuse to play it back, and the act of altering the DVD player to run out-of-region discs is unlawful under the DMCA’s section 1201. It could even be a crime carrying a five-year prison sentence and a $500,000 fine for a first offense (the act of offering a region-free DVD player for sale, or even the neighbour’s kid helping you to deregionalise your DVD player, can be criminal acts).

Companies can only use the DMCA if they can argue that their DRM protected a copyrighted work. Nike can’t invoke section 1201 of the DMCA to prevent a rival company from offering replacement shoelaces for its trainers, because shoelaces and trainers aren’t copyrighted (or copyrightable). But once there’s software involved, copyright enters the picture because software itself can be copyrighted.

The proliferation of “smart” devices has put software – and potentially, the DMCA – into every part of our lives. Your car is a computer that surrounds your body. Auto manufacturers use DRM to prevent independent mechanics from reading out information from broken cars and to prevent diagnostic tool-makers from making smarter diagnostic equipment. Mechanics and tool-makers who want to know what’s wrong with your car have to either break the DRM (risking fines or even prison) or get the official manufacturer’s permission to compete, which drives up repair costs. In other words, now that there’s software in your car, the DMCA can be invoked to give manufacturers a monopoly over parts, service and features for them.

And it’s not just cars. Every three years, the US copyright office entertains proposals for limited exemptions to section 1201 of the DMCA.

In 2015, they heard from people who have been frustrated by anti-circumvention rules as applied to voting machines (a computer we put a democracy inside of); hospital equipment (a computer we put sick people inside of); medical implants (computers we put inside our bodies); as well as critical infrastructure, financial technology and more.

Tellingly, many of these petitioners were security experts. DRM advocates say that when a security expert discloses a defect in their products – a flaw, say, that would allow strangers to watch your family through your baby monitor, or kill you by dumping all your insulin pump’s medicine into your blood at once, or take control of your car over the internet and drive it, operating the brakes, steering and acceleration (all examples of things people have done or shown could be done by exploiting vulnerabilities in devices with DRM) – they are violating laws that protect DRM.

These manufacturers say that the law gives them to power to determine when, if ever, the people who entrust their lives, privacy, security, votes and finances to computer-based products get to know about the defects in those products.

How is it still around?

It’s been 18 years since the DMCA passed into law under then President Bill Clinton, co-sponsored by congressman Barney Frank, voted in unanimously by the Senate. The law has obvious, gross constitutional defects, so how is it still in force?

Here’s the civics-class version of the relationship between the US constitution and Congress: America’s constitution limits the laws Congress can make. Congress isn’t supposed to make unconstitutional laws, and when a judge finds such a law, he or she can rule that the law is invalid.

But nothing as high-stakes as law is ever as simple as that. People can disagree about whether a law is constitutional – the constitution has a lot of high-flown language whose specifics have been hammered out over centuries by judges and lawyers and scholars who have fiercely debated them (and even gone to war over them). So a lawmaker might create a statute he believes to be constitutional, while a judge might rule that it’s not and strike it down.

Then there’s the question of how these sorts of questions wind up in front of a court.

In the years since the DMCA’s passage, there have been relatively few court challenges. In one case, Universal v Corley, a movie studio successfully sued the hacker magazine 2600 for publishing computer code that could descramble a DVD.

In 2002, a technologically unsophisticated judge in the case ruled that a hacker magazine could be censored under the DMCA and was not shielded by the first amendment’s guarantee of free speech because the code was a form of “stealing”.

In the years since, the entertainment industry has been canny about its threats.

When Ed Felten – a prominent computer scientist, then at Princeton University, now deputy CTO of the White House – and a group of peers published a paper on defects in DRM for music called Secure Digital Music Initiative, the record companies threatened to sue him and the technical conference where the paper was to be delivered. The Electronic Frontier Foundation stepped forward to defend Felten, and the labels beat all speed records withdrawing their threats because they understood that judges would be reluctant to give record executives a veto over the kinds of technical presentations that computer scientists could give.

At this point, you may be asking why, if the law hasn’t come up in court decisions very often, does it even matter. But it does, because the few successful prosecutions under the law have been sufficient to chill all kinds of technological development and security disclosures.

The reason your computer automatically rips your old CDs and offers to move them to your mobile device and the cloud, but prompts you to buy your DVDs anew to watch them on a mobile screen, is that the DMCA has successfully intimidated every operating system company in the world into not including DVD-ripping software out of the box (those DVD-ripping programs you may have tried? Also radioactively illegal to distribute).

Don’t forget all those security researchers who told the copyright office that their lawyers wouldn’t let them warn us about the potentially lethal defects in all those internet of things devices we’re coming to rely on – there’s no question that section 1201 of the DMCA scares the heck out of businesses and security professionals.

The case in question

Which brings us to today’s lawsuit. EFF is representing two clients: Andrew “bunnie” Huang, a legendary engineer with a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who made his reputation when he figured out how to install the free operating system GNU/Linux on Microsoft’s Xbox and published a book about it; and Matthew Green, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins and considered a heavyweight in security circles, whose research includes audits of OpenSSL and Truecrypt.

One of Huang’s projects is a gadget called NeTV, which allows users to overlay images over HD videos. Huang figured out a clever way to work with High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) – a widely used DRM for HD videos – without violating the DMCA. But he wants to expand NeTV’s features in a new device called NetVCR, which will allow you to record and manipulate digital video the same way you can with analogue videos and a video recorder: record them for later, turn them into clips that you reuse in legal ways, and so on.

Green, meanwhile, wants to do security research of the sort that could raise section 1201 threats. Though the copyright office has granted some limited exemptions to the DMCA that allow security research on consumer equipment and some medical devices, Green’s research includes investigating the security of industrial-grade encryption devices used to secure cryptographic keys for purposes such as processing credit card or ATM transactions.

He has a grant from the National Science Foundation to investigate the security of medical record systems. He wants to investigate the security of medical devices; toll collection systems; industrial firewalls and virtual private network devices; and wireless communications systems that connect vehicles to one another and to the surrounding infrastructure. Lurking flaws in these devices pose a serious threat to the economy and hundreds of millions of people who rely on them every day, so we really want people like Green to be able to independently validate their quality (the bad guys who want to abuse those devices don’t ask for permission to investigate their flaws, after all).

Why EFF is suing

Suing on behalf of Huang and Green, EFF’s complaint argues that the wording of the statute requires the Library of Congress to grant exemptions for all conduct that is legal under copyright, including actions that rely on fair use, when that conduct is hindered by the ban on circumvention.

Critically, the supreme court has given guidance on this question in two rulings, Eldred and Golan, explaining how copyright law itself is constitutional even though it places limits on free speech; copyright is, after all, a law that specifies who may utter certain combinations of words and other expressive material.

The supreme court held that through copyright’s limits, such as fair use, it accommodates the first amendment. The fair-use safety valve is joined by the “idea/expression dichotomy”, a legal principle that says that copyright only applies to expressions of ideas, not the ideas itself.

In the 2015 DMCA 1201 ruling, the Library of Congress withheld or limited permission for many uses that the DMCA blocks, but which copyright itself allows – activities that the supreme court has identified as the basis for copyright’s very constitutionality.

If these uses had been approved, people such as Huang and Green would not face criminal jeopardy. Because they weren’t approved, Huang and Green could face legal trouble for doing these legitimate things.

It’s a complicated story, existing at the intersection of law, technology and information security, realms that are hard enough to get your arms around on their own, let alone in combination. But that very complexity – honestly, that very boringness – has allowed this anti-circumvention rule from the DMCA to fester and metastasize into devices that are taking over the physical world.

EFF’s lawsuit could take years to be finally decided.

Along the way, companies, entrepreneurs, members of the public and US trading partners are all going to have to decide which side they’re on, and whether it’s worth the risk of tolerating DMCA 1201 and its international cousins, or if it’s better to unlock value, to thwart rent-seeking monopolists, to bring transparency and accountability to the design of crucial products and categories of products.

Today, EFF took the first step toward a future where we are allowed to know whether our devices are fit for purpose, where we are allowed to reconfigure them to suit our needs, to help one another get more use out of our property.

Now, it’s up to all of us.


Source: The Guardian

2016-07-21

Windows 10: Microsoft warns users to stop using THIS hugely-popular app

MICROSOFT is cautioning Windows 10 users against using Google's hugely-successful Chrome web browser.
Windows 10

Microsoft is very keen for Windows 10 users to ditch Google Chrome

Microsoft is very keen for Windows 10 users to ditch Google Chrome.

The US technology firm has started to use pop-up dialogue boxes within Windows 10 to warn users about the battery drain caused by Google's hugely-successful web browser.

Windows developer Rudy Huyn posted a screenshot of the Microsoft warning.

It states "Chrome is draining your battery faster. Switch to Microsoft Edge for up to 36 per cent more browsing time."

This is not the first time Microsoft has sung the praises of the battery life saving technology built into its Edge web browser.

Earlier this year, the Redmond technology firm published a video showing the power consumption of different web browsers on Windows 10 devices, pitting its own Edge against Google Chrome, Opera and Firefox.

In the lab-controlled test, which saw the Microsoft devices churn through an automated cycle of opening sites, scrolling online articles, watching videos and launching new tabs, Microsoft Edge easily managed to outlast all of its rivals, with Google Chrome lasting just four hours and 19 minutes, compared to seven hours and 22 minutes for Edge.

Windows 10

Developer Rudy Huyn noticed the Windows 10 warning about Google Chrome

Microsoft Edge is the default browser that ships with Windows 10 – and is even actively promoted during the upgrade process.

Unless you are actively reading, checking and carefully choosing your options during the installation, the operating system will swap any rival browsers you'd set as the default on Windows 7 or 8.1 to Microsoft Edge.

But despite that, Microsoft Edge is not a popular option among Windows 10 users.

Google Chrome (and its hidden game) was first released seven years ago. Since then, its popularity has skyrocketed.

In fact, StatCounter estimates that a jaw-dropping 60% of desktop web traffic comes from the Google-owned browser.

Chrome now accounts for a staggering 70 per cent of all browser activity originating from Windows 10.

Windows 10

Microsoft has pitted some of the most popular web browsers against one another

Software Engineer Jackson Newhouse, of Quantcast said: "The wide release of Windows 10 did initially bump Edge’s market share from 12 per cent to 16 per cent.

"However, this increase was temporary, with Chrome recovering from temporary losses and reaching over 70 per cent market share of Windows 10, higher than the 63 per cent it pulls in on Windows 7 and 8.

"More and more users are using Windows 10 every day, and most have shifted off of the old Internet Explorer.

"However, that movement hasn’t entirely been towards Edge, with a number of users choosing Chrome instead.

"Microsoft may be able to make further inroads into the browser market with Edge, but it’ll take more than a new operating system to unseat Chrome’s dominance."

Windows 10

Microsoft is making further improvements to battery life in Anniversary Update

Microsoft Edge recently added support for browser extensions – a must-have feature that was missing for its first year on the market.

Windows 10 Anniversary Update, which is set to hit machines next month, will boast more battery-life enhancements for Edge, thanks to fewer CPU cycles, less memory consumption and a tighter hold on background activity.

The news comes as renown Microsoft author and pundit Paul Thurrott said the popularity and new capabilities built into iOS and Android could spell the end for Microsoft and Windows 10.

Mr Thurrott said Microsoft was currently facing "a potential EXTINCTION moment."

Those who upgrade now will get the latest updates for free, including the upcoming Anniversary Update.

This blockbuster update is scheduled for release this summer and will include a redesigned Start Menu (with twice as many adverts) and new handwriting recognition software.

2016-07-20

Why you shouldn't let your iPhone get too hot in the heatwave and how to keep it cool

AS TEMPERATURES continue to soar it's important to keep your gadgets from getting too toasty – here's some top tips on keeping things cool in heat.
iPhone

After months of wind, rain and cold Britain is finally in the middle of a heatwave.

With the barmy temperatures set to continue over the next few days Brits are clearly enjoying soaking up the sun.

However, the smartphone in your pocket is not such a big fan of these record hot conditions.

Most devices have an optimal temperature and once that's exceeded things can go wrong.

In fact many tech companies, including Apple, state that devices should be stored where the temperature is between -20º and 45º C.

So, if you want to keep your smartphone working at its best, here's some top tips for keeping it cool.

iPhone

1. Remove any cases

Yes it keeps the phone from getting damaged but, like a big wooly jumper, a case won't allow heat to escape as quickly as it needs to.

Smartphones are meant to get hot as the exterior of the device functions as a cooling surface that transfers heat from inside the device to the cooler air outside.

But a case can make it get too hot in these conditions so remove the protection and just be careful not to drop your phone.

2. DON'T leave your phone in the car

Pets should never be left in car and neither should your phone. Temperatures inside a parked vehicle can easily reach 60º C and that's when things will start to go seriously wrong.

3. KEEP it out of the sun

If you sit in the sun too long you're likely go red and so will your phone so keep yourself, and your phone, in the shade during the hottest times of the day.

4. Turn things off

Some functions such as GPS tracking, navigation in a car, or playing a graphics-intensive game will make your phone hotter than a supermodel so avoid using these feature in the current conditions.

5. DON'T charge it

Plugging your smartphone into the mains will make it heat up so, if it's already burning your hands, keep it away from the power lead.

What happens when your phone gets too hot?

If things do get out of control it's likely your phone will shut itself down to avoid any irreparable damage.

When the device goes off the advice is simple – put it somewhere cool and leave it well alone for a few hours.

And whatever you do DON'T put it in the fridge or freezer...that's only going to leave you needing to buy a brand new phone.

WhatsApp BANNED again: Thousands of Brits face total messaging block

BRAZILIAN judge orders immediate shutdown of WhatsApp just weeks before millions head to the Olympics in Rio.
Whatsapp banned

BANNED: Brazil is blocking users from

WhatsApp fans are once again facing a countrywide ban in Brazil.

The world's most popular messaging app has just been blocked by a top judge in the country after its owners, Facebook, stood by a refusal to intercept texts for a police investigation.

The ban began at 11.30am local time today, with all of Brazil's five leading mobile operators agreeing to stop customers accessing the app.

It's currently unclear how long the app faces its censorship but the block has led to fears that it may extend up to the start of the Olympic Games on August 8th.

Thousands of Brits are expected to enter the country and the block could leave many unable to keep in touch with loved ones back home.

The Olympics has already been marred by the Zika virus and problems with the game's venues being ready to go ahead.

The latest order marks the third time that WhatsApp has been banned in Brazil over the last 12 months.

Whatsapp banned

BANNED: Brazil is blocking users from

The last WhatsApp block lasted for 72 hours, although the reasons behind it were never officially disclosed.

This followed a 48-hour outage back in December after repeated failings by the company to co-operate in a criminal investigation related to a drug trafficking deal.

Under the latest ban, ordered by Rio judge Daniela Barbosa, WhatsApp will be required to pay $50,000 a day until it complies with a court order to release the necessary information.

Brazil is one of WhatsApp's leading global markets, with nearly 100 million users estimated in the country, including many of the nation's doctors, who use the service to talk to their patients.

How do you get a verified blue tick on Twitter? Here's how anyone can do it

TWITTER has changed its policy, allowing anyone to request a verified blue tick on the social media website for the first time. Here's how to get verified right now.
Twitter Verified

Fancy a Twitter blue tick? Here's how you can get it

For years, being verified on Twitter was only open to celebrities, famous figures, and noteworthy citizens – a sure sign that you'd made it to the top of the social media pile.

However from today, Twitter is allowing anyone to apply online to get a "verified" account on the site.

The online application does seem fairly lengthy, and will require you to hand over some personal information, but if you really want that blue tick, here's how to get it.

To begin with, you'll need to submit basic information for your account, including the likes of a verified phone number, birthday, email address, profile bio and photo.

Your tweets will also need to be set to public rather than private, and you'll need a website linked to your account.

Twitter is also recommending that individuals submitting a request use their real or stage name, and that the photos you include portray you accurately.

Twitter Verified

Supercharge your Twitter account with verification

Along with this, the site may also ask for additional information about your account, including giving your own personal reasons why you deserve a verified profile (e.g. what makes you noteworthy).

Finally, you may also need to send Twitter a copy of government ID such as a passport or driving licence to prove your own identity.

The applications can be filled out online now, with Twitter promising to respond to all requests via email.

If your request is rejected, you will need to wait 30 days before submitting a new one.

Twitter says it has around 187,000 verified accounts at the moment, but 320 million active users, meaning the approval criteria is notably tough.

Tina Bhatnagar, Twitter's vice president of User Services, said: "We want to make it even easier for people to find creators and influencers on Twitter so it makes sense for us to let people apply for verification.

"We hope opening up this application process results in more people finding great, high-quality accounts to follow, and for these creators and influencers to connect with a broader audience."

2016-07-19

We ain't in 1996 anymore, Dorothy: SQL Server 2016 proves it

Enterprise engine? Check. Cloud database? TBC
SQL Server 2016

Microsoft has had a database since 1989, initially working with Ashton-Tate and Sybase to create a variant of Sybase SQL Server for IBM’s OS/2.

But it wasn’t until 1995 that Microsoft really got serious with SQL Server 6 for Microsoft’s rock-solid server operating system Windows NT.

Back then, however, engines like SQL Server - along with IBM’s DB2, Oracle - were being billed as relational when they weren’t.

And so it was that the follow-on SQL Server 6.5 in 1996 struggled to provide basic relational features such as Declarative Referential Integrity (DRI arrived in 6.5 but didn’t include Cascade Delete and Update).

In those days, each shiny new version was examined to see how well it matched the basic feature set that Ted Codd had outlined for relational engines.

Two decades on and all of the basics have long since been covered, so the new features are often unique to each engine. This makes differentiation much easier and it also explains the slightly rag-bag nature of the features listed below.

So here, in no particular order, are what I think are the best new features in SQL Server 2016, released at the start of June.

Stretch database

Microsoft has gone large on the cloud, so it is not surprising that Stretch DB has appeared as part of SQL Server 2016. You can now create a function on table that will move rows meeting a given condition into the cloud.

Why would you want to do that? Well, imagine that you have a large table, maybe a terabyte or so - given that I am on a nostalgia trip, SQL Server 6.5 proudly boasted that databases of up to 100GB could be supported. Suppose that most of it is historical data that you rarely need to query but it has to be there for the times that you do.

You simply set up a function that moves rows older than a certain date into our nebulous friend and a 1TB table becomes 200GB on site and 800GB on cirrus. Any queries that run are simply written to run against the local table. If they request recent rows the local data is used to service the query; if not, a call is transparently made to the cloud. There is no need to backup the cloud part of the table, Microsoft will do that for you so, essentially, this feature can be used to create an online archive.

Of course, there is some bad news to balance the good. The function has to use an absolute date so you can’t set up, for example, “current date - I month.”

BI edition goes

SQL Server 2012 introduced the BI edition, and 2016 kills it. That edition always was a slightly strange mix of features so it comes as no surprise that it was never popular. It is unlikely to be much lamented and Microsoft says that it is dealing individually with the customers who did adopt it.

Security

SQL Server 6.5 saw the introduction of row-level locking; 20 years on we get row-level security which is a fair indication of how feature-rich the modern database engines have become. So, for example, we might set up security so that when a user runs a query, their username is used to look up the department to which they belong and then their query returns only the rows in the table that appertain to their department. Another user runs exactly the same query and they see only the rows for their department.

Data masking

Continuing with the security theme, we can store, for example, a customer’s credit card number in a table. If I - with my low security clearance - query the table I see, I receive not the full number, but a series of XXXX and the last 4 digits. You - ruler of the security world - run the same query and see the entire number.

Datazen

Last year Microsoft bought Datazen Software, a mobile BI provider. Essentially, Datazen offered the ability to sync with live data sources but also the ability to cache up to 100,000 records on the mobile device being used.

Given the data coverage in some parts of the country, this is a huge boon as it allows the user to continue working with the data when the connection fails. Datazen always did offer very good integration with SQL Server Analysis Services and the SQL Server platform in general. So it doesn’t come as a huge shock that its software is now integrated into Reporting Services.

Overall, Microsoft is trying to ensure reporting becomes more unified. A hint of that may be found on the SQL Server blog:

“To achieve these requirements, we are aligning our cloud and on-premises solutions. It is our intent that your reporting technology investments and expertise will transfer across these deployment modalities.”

Translated, I take that to mean that our expensive reporting technologies and hard-won expertise will work on both cloud and on-site deployments. Which is good. I’m pleased.

R Server

As an avid R fan, I am delighted to report that it is now possible to call R from within stored procedures. One might begin to wonder what other languages are in the pipeline.

The long and the short of it

Since those early steps of the mid 1990s, SQL Server has become firmly established in the league of extraordinary database engines.

What is apparent now, however, is that SQL Server is becoming more and more cloud-aware and this in turn may well be indicative of Microsoft’s changing attitude.

Twenty years ago, Microsoft desperately wanted to possess an enterprise level database engine and was very keen to sell you the product that it actually had. Now it has an enterprise level database engine and is very keen to sell you a service in the cloud, that cloud being its own - Azure.

Pokemon Go: Wanted criminal arrested after visiting 'gym' at police station

Police recognised the man, who had a warrant out for his arrest
Pokemon Go

While playing Pokémon Go, one Michigan criminal found the last thing he was looking for: the police.

William Wilcox found himself at the Milford police station while playing the augmented reality game. The station had been listed as a “gym”, where gamers can claim and catch other Pokémon.

Mr Wilcox had a warrant for his arrest, however, and police nabbed him on the spot.

Police told NBC affiliate KCBD that the game simply made the job easier.

“Fortunately, sometimes they make our job easy for us,” said police chief Tom Lindberg.

“The original charge he had was for breaking and entering, but the warrant was for failure to appear for sentencing. He either forgot he had a warrant out for his arrest or was just ignoring it thinking nothing will happen.”

Given the fact that Milford – a town 30 miles north of Ann Arbor – has a population under 6,500, police recognised Mr Wilcox when he arrived at the station.

Mr Wilcox was arraigned and released, apparently unphased by the time in police custody.

“I think he was more upset that he had to stop playing the game,” said Mr Lindberg, adding that this could have been avoided if Mr Wilcox were more mindful of his surroundings.

“Don’t just walk into the police building and start playing the game,” he said. “Most of those characters will appear outside the building."

Google used this woman's name on all its Docs templates, and she's spent the last 2 years dealing with confused and angry messages

She wondered whether Google had actually Googled the name before it used hers -- and wished it had
Casey Baumer

Casey Baumer got her first message about Google Docs roughly two years ago.

A friend called and asked her, "'Uhh, did you know your name is the Google Docs name?' And I had no idea what she was talking about," the 20-something food stylist tells Business Insider.

It didn't take her long to figure it out.

If you've ever used one of Google's apps like Docs or Slides, you may have seen her name at the top of an example résumé or plastered on a project template.

Google uses "Casey Baumer" as the randomly generated dummy name on all of its document prompts.

Casey Baumer

A Google spokesperson says that the company decided to use that name instead of something like John Smith or Jane in the spirit of creativity, but the decision ultimately caused the real Casey Baumer to receive dozens of angry or confused messages.

After that initial phone call, Baumer started hearing more and more about her "alter ego" from friends and acquaintances

Sometimes it was kind of funny, so she tried to ignore it or would respond by explaining the situation. But things really got weird about a year ago when she discovered a heap of messages in her "Other" inbox on Facebook.

Casey Baumer

Strangers were accusing Casey of hacking into their Google accounts or secretly corresponding with their significant others.

While some of the messages made Baumer laugh, the instances where people seemed really mad made her uncomfortable, and it became a hassle to keep explaining to everyone what was going on.

Casey Baumer

"If you actually look at the documents, instead of just reading the name, it's clear that none of it's real," Baumer says. Google user a filler text, called "lorem ipsum," for the bulk of the documents, so it's just gibberish. "But people clearly don't really read it!"

The constant barrage of messages became frustrating and creepy.

Someone even started writing a fictional story about her.

Casey Baumer

She wondered whether Google had actually Googled the name before it used hers -- and wished it had.

She got so sick of the messages that she posted a couple of statuses on Facebook imploring friends to help her get in touch with someone at Google.

Her most recent status caught some steam (including leading Business Insider to reach out to both Baumer and Google).

Casey Baumer

A spokesperson said the company's in the process of updating its template names.

For Baumer, that comes as huge relief.


SourcE:&nbps;Business Insider UK

TomTom GO - Navigation You Can Rely On

Finding your way around town isn't as complicated as it used to be thanks to our trusted smartphones. As is the case with most aspects of our lives, smartphones have made navigating from one place to another incredibly simple.
TomTom GO

Nearly every smartphone made today, even budget ones, feature a GPS sensor thus shifting navigation apps towards mobile phones was a natural move for the industry. We come from a time when you had to carry around a separate navigation device when embarking on a longer journey, but that was still unmeasurably better than fumbling around with a map for which you had to have a degree in cartography to actually get anywhere. Thankfully those days are behind us and today we have more elegant solutions such as TomTom’s GO navigation. Being on the market for quite some time, the folks at TomTom know a thing or two about navigation, so it will be interesting to see how their improved app has turned out.

Unlike previous versions of TomTom’s app, this one is actually free to download. In order to attract more users to their platform, TomTom offered it free for the first 50 miles every month. This approach to TomTom GO is allowing users to experience every feature for a limited amount of time. And by limited amount of time we mean an allowance of 50 miles per month. Unfortunately, the miles don’t transfer from month to month so it’s better to use them up before they expire.

TomTom GO

What happens when you reach the mileage limit you might wonder? Users will still have access to route planning, overview, and even traffic information, but turn-by-turn navigation and its goodies such as traffic avoidance and speed camera alerts will be off limits. Although there are many free alternatives out there, we think this is a great way to showcase the product to potential customers. The 50-mile allowance isn’t a barrier that you have to overcome, rather it represents a comfortable zone for testing out the product and all its features. Additionally, there is no time limit so you aren’t pressured into buying it just because the trial period is expiring.

TomTom GO

Subscription stuff aside, how does TomTom’s interface perform in the real world? Well like all their products, TomTom GO provides users with a ton of options and unprecedented clarity when navigating big cities. 3D buildings provide reference points so you can actually plan your turns ahead and the traffic information is just a lifesaver on any trip. It is a feature we want to single out simply because it can save you hours on any journey. The downside is that you have to be connected, but it’s an obstacle we are willing to overcome. Those venturing into areas without internet connection will be glad to know that maps can be downloaded for offline use. Just make sure you have enough free space and download the maps before setting off because they are quite hefty and best downloaded over Wi-Fi. Route planning includes the standard settings such as shortest, fastest, most eco-friendly, etc.

TomTom GO

TomTom’s latest smartphone app isn’t free like some competing apps, but it’s certainly worth every penny thanks to countless features and regular map updates. Features such as live traffic info just aren’t that robust on free apps and TomTom just feels more refined in every aspect. For those that travel often or commute between cities, TomTom GO is definitely a worthwhile investment.

2016-07-18

Google My Activity shows everything that company knows about its users – and there’s a lot

The new site collects every website you’ve been on, everything you’ve searched and many of the things you’ve done with your phone
Google My Activity shows everything that company knows about its users

There's a lot to see

Google has launched a new site that shows absolutely everything it knows about its users. And there’s an awful lot of it.

The new My Activity page collects all of the data that Google has generated by watching its customers as they move around the web. And depending on your settings that could include a comprehensive list of the websites you’ve visited and the things you’ve done with your phone.

Google has long allowed its users to see the kinds of information that is being generated as people use the company’s products, including letting people listen in on automated recordings that it has made of its users. But the new page collects them together in a more accessible – and potentially more terrifying – way than ever before.

The page shows a full catalogue of pages visited, things searched and other activity, grouped by time. It also lets people look at the same timeline through filters – looking at specific dates, which go all the way into the past, and specific products like Google search, YouTube or Android.

When users open up the page for the first time, pop-ups make the case for why it has been launched and why Google collects quite so much data. You can use the site to “rediscover the things you’ve searched for, visited and watched on Google services” and help “delete specific items or entire topics”.

All of the information that’s used is how Google uses its ads services. By tracking people around the internet it can tailor those ads – but people can use the same site to opt out from the tracking entirely, or just delete information that they would rather wasn’t used for advertising.

Users aren’t automatically opted into the interest-based advertising tools, despite heavily rolling out the feature. The site asks people instead to turn it on – encouraging people to do so because it makes adverting more helpful and muting any specific ads that people don’t want to see.

Pokemon Go down: How to try and fix app when it's not working

Sometimes it just means admitting defeat
How to try and fix app when it's not working
Pokémon Go is down — almost all the time. But here are some tips for trying to get it back up.

The hugely successful game has struggled since it was launched under the pressure of its massive popularity.

That hasn't been helped by reported intentional attacks on the game's servers, which have seen malicious people send huge amounts of requests in an attempt to bring down the game.

Developer Niantic has promised to make the game more stable, and has stopped it being rolled out across the world until it is fixed. But neither seems to have fixed the game yet.

Sometimes it will be down entirely, and if you try these tips and find the app doesn't load properly repeatedly, then it might be worth giving up for a while.


But here are some things worth trying.

1) Get your timing right

There are certain times when it's impossible to get on, and others when it's far better. They seem mostly to correlate with when people in the US are playing, and presumably putting more load on the servers. That means that you'll find it far easier, in the UK and Europe, to play in the morning and early afternoon local time; once 3 or 4 o'clock comes around, and people in the US start having their lunch breaks, the game becomes mostly inaccessible.

2) Mobile data vs WiFi

Try WiFi when you can. The problems are mostly with Niantic's servers, it seems, and so the speed of your connection shouldn't theoretically matter. But anecdotally it does seem easier to get on when on WiFi, presumably because all-important delays are avoided.

3) Know when to close the app

If the game doesn't load quickly, it probably won't load. The two initial loading screens can hang and go slowly when the game isn't working properly, but they'll usually load in less than a minute. It seems that if the game is taking an unusual amount of time to get through them, you're probably not going to get through. In those situations it's best to close the game — entirely, by shutting it from the multitasking screen on your phone — and then try again.

And conversely, if you're on, you're on. If you manage to make it through to two important screens, then there's far less chance you'll be kicked off. At times of high demand, you'll find some things load slowly — Pokéstops might be inaccessible, and Pokémon might not appear — but the game will keep you online and so it's worth just leaving it open.

4) Know your icons

The spinning Pokéball in the top left corner mostly means that the game isn't working, not that it is. This icon is meant to be a loading message, meaning the same as the whirring circles you'll get on other apps. But since the game doesn't actually have to load much when it's working, the fact you're seeing it is probably a bad sign. If it starts popping up a lot, hold on, because your game is probably about to break down. (Not that there's anything you can do.)

If it does stop working, check the journal to see how much of your activity has been saved. Clicking on the Pokéball at the bottom of the screen will let you bring up the journal, which has a full timeline of everything you've been up to. From there you can see where your activity stopped saving — and whether or not you missed out on that last Pokémon.

68% of Europeans want to use biometric authentication for payments

Over two thirds (68 percent) of consumers across Europe are interested in using biometrics when making a payment, especially when integrated with other security measures.
68% of Europeans want to use biometric authentication for payments

Half of Europeans (51 percent) said that biometric authentication for payments could create a faster and simpler payment experience than traditional methods

Over two thirds (68 percent) of consumers across Europe are interested in using biometrics when making a payment, especially when integrated with other security measures.

According to new research from Visa, 73 percent see two-factor authentication as a secure way to confirm an account holder. Responses were collected from more than 14,000 European consumers in the UK, Sweden, Spain, France, Germany, Italy and Poland.

Online retailers have the opportunity to gain the most from biometric change as 31 percent of people have abandoned a browser-based purchase due to the payment security process.

“This study proves that there is a strong desire on the part of consumers to have secure AND frictionless user experiences when interacting and transacting online. The desire, however, might not match up with the reality of the situation. Physical biometrics such as fingerprints, selfies and voice authentication are seen by some as the ‘holy grail' in user authentication, but they aren't fool-proof, and there are other challenges that may block their widespread adoption in non-face-to-face interactions,” said Robert Capps, VP at NuData Security in emailed commentary to SCmagazineUK.com.

“Passive biometric solutions identify suspicious activity in a completely passive and non-intrusive way by understanding how a legitimate user truly behaves in contrast to a potential fraudster with legitimate information. So, even if the fraudster has your spoofed fingerprint, and all of your account information, organisations can look at your behavioural events, biometrics, device, geography and other layers to determine if you are the real actor behind the device or fingerprint,” Capps continued.

Half of Europeans (51 percent) said that biometric authentication for payments could create a faster and simpler payment experience than traditional methods. A third (33 percent) are content and take comfort in the fact that their details would be safe even if their device was lost or stolen.

Over half (53 percent) prefer fingerprint authentication to other forms of biometric authentication for payments. Nearly a quarter (73 percent) are as comfortable with fingerprint authentication as they are with PINs.

Far fewer consumers say they prefer voice or facial recognition as a payment method whether physically shopping in a store (12 percent) or shopping online (15 percent). In the UK, the figures fall for voice or facial recognition as payment forms to eight percent for physical store shopping and 15 percent for online shopping.

“As we move into the future, consumers will have an increasing number of choices in how they pay. Just as the payment behaviour will change dependent on where you are and on what device you are shopping, the methods of authentication will need to be use-case appropriate. While biometric forms of authentication offer significant opportunities to achieve the right balance between convenience and security, they are not the only answer. In the future we will see a mix of solutions dependent on the purchasing situation. By adapting our standards to recognise these technologies as valid forms of authentication now, we can help provide the environment for payments to continue to take place securely, conveniently and discreetly,” said Jonathan Vaux, executive director of innovation partnerships at Visa Europe.

2016-07-17

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 UK price revealed: This could be the most EXPENSIVE device yet

NEXT flagship device from Samsung could be full of power, but might also break your budget too.
Samsung Galaxy Note 7 UK price revealed

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 - could this be Samsung's next powerhouse device?

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 could be set to be the company's dearest handset to date, according to reports that suggest a huge price tag could be coming.

Reports have claimed that the upcoming phablet could start at an eye-watering €849 (£715), significantly more that many of the other competing devices on the market today.

This includes the company's existing flagship smartphone, the Galaxy S7 edge, which is currently available on Samsung's online store for £639.

This is also far more than the iPhone 6S Plus, Apple's top device, which is available to buy for £539 from the company.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7 UK price revealed

Samsung is hoping for great things from the Galaxy Note 7

Sources speaking to Sammobile said that a price drop is likely soon after release, but that this high initial cost will put off many customers.

However those who choose to shell out that amount of money, the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 does look like it will provide a huge step up from current devices.

This includes possibly featuring an entirely new build of Google's Android software, which was spotted in a benchmarking test last week.

The as-yet-unknown 'Android 6.1' does not fit in with any current Android naming or release structure, as Google has confirmed that the next version of Android, version 7.0, will be named Nougat.

Also set for the Galaxy Note 7 is a powerful Samsung Galaxy Exynos 8893 chipset and 4GB of RAM.

The device will also do away with a fingerprint scanner, replacing it with an iris scanner that looks into your eyes to unlock your phone, and can also give access to protected apps, files, folders, and documents.

Another rumour claims that the Galaxy Note 7 will come with some amazing new translation features.

The new Dictionary and Speaking services will let users quickly translate words from one language to another, as well as finally introduce a reliable text-to-speech functionality.