Report: The Galaxy S IV Is Definitely Being Announced on March 14th

It should come as no surprise the Samsung Galaxy IV is coming. The only question was whether or not it would rear its head at the upcoming Mobile World Congress alongside competitors like the HTC one. Apparently not. According to The Verge, sources say it is definitely coming on March 14th at a Samsung event.

The rumors started with a vague-but-not-too-vague tweet by mobile-review's Eldar Murtazin that implied something was going down on the 14th and that it would negatively affect sales of the upcoming HTC One. Unnamed sources have now confirmed to The Verge that there is such an event, and that it's a Samsung shindig in New York City where the successor to the Samsung throne, the Galaxy S IV will be revealed.

The announcement is said to focus heavily on features over pure specs, apparently the jump from the S III to the S IV will be "larger" than that of the II to the III. So far we've only manage to see a crappy photo, allegedly of the new Samsung handset, and nothing else. Expect to learn a whole lot more come March 14th. [The Verge]

"Twitter" Has Changed a Lot Since the 1700s

Nowadays, we use words like "twitter" all the time to talk about our everyday social meda-ing. In the 1800s, they said "twitter" too, but it meant something a little different. So did "pin." The times, they have a-changed.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, which tracks trends like this over time, "twitter" wasn't quite the same word it is today, but the relation is pretty obvious.

twitter
-One who twits; dial. a tale-bearer.
1854: "Don't tell him anything, he's a twitter."

-A condition of twittering or tremulous excitement (from eager desire, fear, etc.); a state of agitation; a flutter, a tremble. Now chiefly dial.
1869: "[She] was in a twitter, partly of expectation, and partly..of fear."

-A suppressed laugh, a titter; a fit of laughter. dial.
1736: "He is in a mighty twitter."

-An act or the action of twittering, as a bird; light tremulous chirping. Also transf. a sound resembling this.
1871: "A mere swallow-twitter of inarticulate jargon."

"Pin" on the other hand, as explained by John Camden Hotten's 1874 The Slang Dictionary, meant something completely different. At least as slang.

"to put in the pin," to refrain from drinking. From the ancient peg tankard, which was furnished with a row of pins, or pegs, to regulate the amount which each person was to drink. Drunken people are often requested to "put in the pin," from some remote connexion between their unsteadiness and that of a carriage wheel which has lost its linch-pin. The popular cry, "put in the pin," can have no connexion with the drinking pin or peg now, whatever it may originally have had. A merry pin, a roysterer

Of course, plenty of other words have changed as well, with many just picking up verb functionality, like "friend" and "favorite." Still others, like "search," mean the same basic thing, in a completely different context. Who knows what words might get bastardized by social media next, but with any luck someday you'll be able regale your grandchildren with tales of when "sexts" were something exciting. [h/t Boing Boing]

Image by Mariusz Szczygiel/Shutterstock

Facebook’s Never Had A Big User Data Breach, But May Never Recover When It Does

It’s not if, but when. Between crooks, hackers and foreign governments, Facebook probably can’t avoid a serious user data breach forever. When it happens, Facebook may never be able to quiet fears that “personal data isn’t safe there.” That could cause a chilling effect on sharing, jeopardize its future in commerce, and cut short its lifetime.

This isn’t to say Facebook’s not doing everything in its power to prevent this. It has a sizable security team of top talent, infiltrates hacker rings to thwart their schemes, and offers cash bounties to white hats who identify bugs or holes.

Yesterday, though, Facebook announced something very unsettling. A “sophisticated attack” uploaded malware onto the computers of several Facebook engineers when they visited a hacked mobile developer site. Facebook quickly quarantined and scrubbed the devices, called the police, and kicked off an investigation. So far, there’s been no evidence that any user data had been compromised. Perhaps the attackers were after Facebook’s trade secrets or information about partners. Regardless, it was a very close call.

To date, Facebook has managed to keep what is possibly the world’s largest repository of private information from falling into the wrong hands. Its fellow social networks haven’t been as successful. Twitter most recently saw 250,000 accounts accessed by hackers, and last year the passwords for 6.5 million LinkedIn accounts were stolen and published online.

But there’s a huge difference between those social networks getting hacked, and someone getting into your Facebook account. Most data on Twitter and LinkedIn is public by default. Sure there are direct messages, or the few misguided souls who keep their profiles locked down. On Facebook, though, privacy is the default. That means Facebook has a lot more to lose from getting hacked.

The absolute damage of an eventual breach might not be too severe. Perhaps some photos and messages will be stolen, or at worst some credit card information. Facebook would likely respond quickly by quarantining affected accounts until users changed their passwords and reclaimed control.

It’s the psychological damage to Facebook’s brand that will be the real killer. The world’s news outlets would be all over a breach. Though it looks like no user data was accessed, yesterday’s announcement brought swift coverage from the New York Times, BBC, ABC News, The Guardian, and just about every tech news blog.

The world will know, and the fear will sweep across the news feed. Quick to jump to the worst conclusions and re-share sensational stories, Facebook will be filled with people advising friends to cease sharing, pull out all their data, and shut down their accounts. Most won’t go that far, but the looming worry that nothing is safe on Facebook will permeate the world population and slam its stock price.

Facebook already struggles to fight a perception that it creeps on people’s data, and that its privacy controls are so confusing that people accidentally expose their own information. The emergence of vulnerability to outside attack will compound these issues. Together, they could derail Zuckerberg’s Law — the theory that the amount of content we share doubles every year.

Facebook’s business model is a value exchange. It offers a free, powerful, unified communication tool, and to access it, users trade in their data and allow Facebook to monetize it through advertising and other methods. But that exchange requires that we trust Facebook to keep our private data safe. If that trust is shaken, adding your most private thoughts, media, contact info, and financial data becomes more of a conscious decision about risk.

Injecting that hesitation into the sharing process could be the biggest threat to Facebook’s long-term success outside of a rising social network that refuses to be acquired. In other words, no matter how well Facebook plays the security game, the odds are stacked against it, and the stakes have never been higher.

As Patent Drama Continues, 3D Printing Provides A Way Out For Mashup Creators

Editor’s note: Michael Weinberg is vice president at Public Knowledge where he focuses primarily on copyright, issues before the FCC and emerging technologies like 3D printing. Follow him on Twitter @mweinbergPK.

Mashups are one of the great art forms of our time. Easy and accessible digital tools have allowed anyone to remix videos, music and photographs into their own original works: Mashup culture has produced fantastic music, critical video, and delightful cultural artifacts of all kinds.

However, mashups are ultimately limited by the nature of their source material. The types of things that mashups draw from - videos, music, photos - are also the types of things that are protected by copyright, which means mashup creators need to take copyright into account when creating their works. Sometimes, because of rules such as fair use, the creator does not need permission from the person who owns rights to the source material. Other times, mostly because the work falls outside of the scope of fair use, the creator does need permission. The requirement for permission inevitably prevents some mashups from being seen by a wide audience and makes it harder for creators to make money.

Enter 3D Printing

There are plenty of reasons to be excited about 3D printing, but one of them is that it moves beyond the world of things protected by copyright. When you step away from your computer screen and look around, you realize that the physical world - the real world - is full of real, physical things that are not protected by copyright. In fact, the world is full of things that are not protected by any sort of intellectual property right at all. That means that you can take them and do whatever you want with them. And that includes mashing them up.

One of the best examples of this so far is the Free Universal Construction Kit (below). The kit remixes 10 different construction toys into adaptors that make them interoperable. These toys are functional objects so they are outside of the scope of copyright. While some of them were patented when they first came to market, patents only last 20 years. That means that most of the toys are no longer protected. As long as you stick with the toys that are no longer protected by patent, you can remix them to your heart's content.

The Free Universal Construction Kit is just the beginning when it comes to remixing things. Easy-to-use tools like meshmixer allow people to remix things just as easily as they remix songs or videos. And unlike those songs or videos, many of the things will not be protected by copyright.

One of the keys to this next generation of mashups will be a strong understanding of how copyright interacts with physical objects. While copyright will not protect functional objects, it will protect decorative ones. Understanding functional vs. decorative will mean the difference between a mashup encumbered by copyright and a mashup that is in the clear.

Public Knowledge’s latest whitepaper, What's the Deal with 3D Printing and Copyright? should help everyone begin to understand what is protected by copyright and to start thinking about what is not protected by copyright. That second category includes a lot of things just waiting to be remixed and mashed up.

[Image: F.A.T. - Free Art & Technology]

Automate Enabling/Disabling SBSettings Toggles And Lots More With SBProfiles

When I’m running out of battery life on my iPhone 5, the first thing I tend to do is to turn off Location Services, Bluetooth and kill all the background processes.

Now that I’ve jailbroken it, SBSettings makes it even more easier, as all I need to do is swipe on the status bar and then tap on the SBSettings toggles to disable them.

But I stumbled on a jailbreak app called SBProfiles (not sure how it missed my radar), which makes my job in such situations even easier. And the best part it does a lot more than just that.

SBProfiles as the name suggests allows you to combine SBSettings toggles into a profile, which can be triggered at any time via a quick access menu or even schedule it.

The jailbreak tweak comes with some default Profiles. These default profiles are dummy profiles, you still have to configure which SBSettings toggles you want to combine for each profile or create a new profile.

Under each profile you can enable or disable different SBSettings toggles. You can also set brightness, set system volume, set ringtone volume, respring, reboot or shutdown and even launch an app.

To enable or disable different SBSettings toggles, tap on Toggles and then drop & drop the Settings toggles under Unchanged to “Off” depending on your preference.

After you have configured the profile, you can access it via an Activator method. You can set the Activation method by tapping on the Settings tab at the bottom and then Action Method(s) under Profile Switching.

Using the Activator method, you can access and activate the SBProfiles from anywhere in the iOS including the Lock screen.

You can also schedule the time of the day when you want to enable the profile, which can be useful if you want to disable some features while sleeping etc. Registered users can also trigger the profiles automatically based on the following conditions:

• Wi-Fi network or Bluetooth device you’re connecting or disconnecting from
• Based on the GPS location
• When your iPhone is charging or unplugged
• When your iPhone is locked or unlocked

The best part is that the jailbreak tweak is that it is free. You need to be registered user to use the triggering capability. To register, you need to may a donation (can be as little as $2) to the developer who will send the product key. It would have been nice if the developer had integrated directly with Cydia’s payment system.

Since the app depends on SBSettings toggles, you must download SBSettings toggles such as Do Not Disturb, Remove Background, Ringer/Silent, Ring and Silent Vibrate, Backlight Dimmer etc from Cydia.

As you can see, SBProfiles comes with a basic user interface, but it is an awesome app and does the job very well. So download SBProfiles and let me know if you found it useful in the comments.

Apple Looking For Manager to Work On “Next Generation Features” for Apple TV

Although Apple calls the Apple TV a “hobby” it is an interesting product to watch, since it is indicative of the company’s future in the living room entertainment market segment. To emerge as a dominant player in this area, Apple’s looking for software engineering managers who are capable enough to lead the development of “next generation” features of the Apple TV.

Here’s what the job description reads:

The Apple TV team is looking for an experienced engineering manager to help deliver the next generation features for Apple TV. Bring your creative energy and engineering discipline, and help us bring the Apple experience to the Living Room.

[...]

- Lead a team of engineers working on exciting new features and functionality
- Drive releases from initial concept to completion
- Work closely with cross functional teams, representing Apple TV across Apple
- Develop the engineering plan for upcoming projects
- Communicate status to key stakeholders and senior management

The most obvious “next generation” feature that comes to mind is of course an official SDK for third party apps that could unleash the true potential of the Apple TV in the same way the iOS SDK did for the iPhone. It could spawn a whole new category of games tailored for large displays, which could possibly “kill” existing gaming consoles like the Xbox and the PS3 and Valve.

Rumors point to an Apple TV related event happening this fall, and we’ll be looking forward to it. Any guesses as to what could be announced? The long rumored Apple Television, a new version of the Apple TV or a major software update that adds support for third-party apps?

Via: 9to5Mac

Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D Hitting Nintendo 3DS This Summer

Donkry Kong fans will want to put some money aside to buy the latest in the series. Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D is coming to the Nintendo 3DS this summer.

Moveo lightweight electric scooter folds up

What if you could drive your scooter to work, then instead of parking it somewhere, just fold it up and carry it like a suitcase that rolls on wheels. Well, now you can my scooter loving friend.

The Weirdest Thing on the Internet Tonight: Ablaze

Originally presented without comment, this mysterious short film by Takahiro Suzuki poses many difficult questions while providing precious few details—who are these people, what are they agog over, and does anyone else smell smoke? Your guess is as good as any.

Porn Star Internet Memes: Naked Harlem Shake (NSFW)

Because every single person on the Internet decided to force induce viralness by not really doing the Harlem Shake while making those ridiculous Harlem Shake videos, it's time to kill this meme with a "Harlem Shake" video that no one can ever top: Porn Stars doing a naked "Harlem Shake". Yep, naked.

It was part of Woodrocket's Memes I'd Like to F*ck series and if you want to see the uncensored NSFW version, it's right here. The video stars Karmen Karma, Brandi Belle, Nina Dove, Peru, Alex Chance, Cameron Canada, Staci Silverstone, Ashli Orion, and WoodRocket's own Seth's Beard as the Pizza Delivery Guy.

Okay, Internet. No more Harlem Shake videos. It's done. No one can top this. You'd be a fool to try. [Woodrocket via Animal NY]

Mercury's 'dynamic and complex world' revealed by Nasa's Messenger

First time planet has high-resolution maps after Nasa spacecraft orbited planet over course of a year

Mercury is the smallest of the solar system's eight planets and, for decades, also its most neglected by humans. While Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn have been probed and photographed in exquisite detail during the space age, the closest planet to the Sun has had to make do with a few flybys from the Mariner 10 spacecraft in the early 1970s.

Now Mercury has its own high-resolution maps, down to the scale of kilometres, made from thousands of images taken by Nasa's Messenger spacecraft as it orbited the planet over the course of a year.

"Messenger has revealed Mercury to be a fascinating, dynamic and complex world," said David Blewett at the Applied Physics Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University and a scientist for the Messenger mission. Part of the reason, he said, that it had taken more than 30 years to revisit the planet since the Mariner 10 flybys was that most people thought Mercury was probably like the moon and largely inert and boring.

"We know now that it is an oddball planet," said Blewett, speaking ahead of a briefing on Friday at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston. "It's the smallest of the eight planets but has the highest density. The interior structure is different than the other planets. The geologic surface is different to the moon and Mars. The surface composition is enigmatic because ... it consists of rock types that we don't have much experience with. It has a global, Earth-like magnetic field, Venus and Mars do not."

The new global colour map is an enhanced image that shows the different compositions of rocks on the surface of Mercury. The more orange areas are volcanic plains while the make-up of the rocks in the deep blue areas is unknown. Though Messenger was able to detect the abundance of individual elements on Mercury's surface - including iron, titanium, sulphur and potassium - without rock samples to study, scientists cannot determine the exact compounds or minerals in which those elements are arranged.

Mercury orbits the sun in an eccentric orbit that gets as close as 46m kilometres and never goes further than 70m kilometres from our star (earth, for comparison, stays about 150m kilometres away). This means the surface of the planet can reach more than 400C.

Nasa's Messenger spacecraft made its first flyby of the planet in 2008 and began to orbit in early 2011, since when it has been mapping and measuring the surface of the planet. In November 2012, Nasa announced there was water ice and tar-like organic molecules at Mercury's poles. Because the planet's axis of rotation around the sun barely tilts from the vertical, the deepest parts of craters at the polar regions never get sunlight and the temperatures there are about -200C. The presence of ice and organic compounds lends weight to the idea that the planet was pummeled by icy comets during the early years of the solar system.

The biggest surprise for researchers is that, on the surface, the abundance of relatively volatile elements such as potassium and sulphur is so high. Most of the models for the formation of Mercury predict that these elements should have evaporated away during the planet's formation.

"The big problem in making Mercury is how do you get a planet that has such a huge iron core and such a small proportion of rock? One of the ideas was that maybe there was a giant impact that stripped off much of the rocky outer layers and left you with unusually high proportion of iron in the core," said Blewett. But Messenger's data, he said, meant planetary scientists would have to come up with new ideas.

One alternative candidate is that the chemical conditions in the inner part of the nebula where Mercury was forming were different than scientists had expected, and this probably allowed iron to condense first, while the rockier parts of the planet were swept away. "That model seems to predict the correct sulphur and potassium abundance for the surface and that's probably the leading contender right now," said Blewett.

Syria crisis: opposition rules out talks with Assad - Friday 15 February 2013

Follow how the day unfolded as Syria's opposition tried to clarify its approach to negotiations with the government as they faced criticism from Russia

Matthew Weaver

Lenovo Notebook Stand (57Y6484)

Lenovo Notebook Stand (57Y6484)

• Durable strong materials
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• Helps protect finish of your computer and desk and Increases air flow around your system

Notebook stand for laptop computers up to 17.3 inches in size (black)

Car Mount Air Vents Holder Kit for Dashboard and Windshield + Rapid Auto Vehicle Plug in Power Charger Adapter + OEM USB 2.0 Data Sync Cable for HTC Desire Z – HTC Gratia – Sprint HTC EVO 4G – US Cellular HTC Merge – HTC 7 Pro – T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide – T-Mobile HTC Wildfire S Marvel Cell Phone

Car Mount Air Vents Holder Kit for Dashboard and Windshield + Rapid Auto Vehicle Plug in Power Charger Adapter + OEM USB 2.0 Data Sync Cable for HTC Desire Z – HTC Gratia – Sprint HTC EVO 4G – US Cellular HTC Merge – HTC 7 Pro – T-Mobile myTouch 4G Slide – T-Mobile HTC Wildfire S Marvel Cell Phone

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Car Mount Holder allows mounting your cell phone, PDA, MP3 player, GPS navigation unit or pretty much anything in your car, SUV or truck while you’re driving. Conveniently mounts to windshield via suction cup. - Car Kit Auto Cigarette Lighter 12V Plug in Vehicle Adapter for your Cell Phone – Durable coil cord for extendable reach and use – Provides power to your phone while simultaneously charging your phone’s battery. – Small and lightweight for convenience, portability and storage – Origin

Forget about next-gen video game consoles from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft – Apple is going to dominate them all

“What I'm about to say is undoubtedly going to piss some of you off,” MG Siegler writes for TechCrunch. “And that's fine. Because in a few years, I'll be right and you'll look silly.”

“While everyone is focused on the next generation video game consoles from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft - the latter two of which should be coming later this year - Apple is going to dominate them all,” Siegler writes. “And it won't even be that difficult.”

“Anyone who has been following the smartphone space for the past few years knows that Apple has sort of backed into video game dominance by way of their iOS devices. Apple has sold over 500 million of them. These devices have yielded over 40 billion downloads of the over 800,000 apps. And a large portion of those apps are games,” Siegler writes. “Even if you lump together the Xbox 360, the Playstation 3, the Wii, and the Nintendo DS, Apple has still sold about 100 million more iOS devices than all of those systems combined... [and] in a much shorter span.”

Siegler writes, “The rumor that Apple would unveil some sort of Apple TV SDK at an event next month turned out to be bogus (as most things analysts say about Apple prove to be). But that doesn't mean it's not coming. In fact, I'd bet on it sooner rather than later.”

Read more in the full article here.

How Tony ‘Father of the iPod’ Fadell reinvented the thermostat with Nest – and what’s coming next

“In 2007, Tony Fadell believed he could see the future. He was an Apple executive who had created the iPod and was a leading figure on the team that had worked on the iPhone, which the company was about to launch,” Tom Simonite reports for MIT Technology Review. “He knew people would soon form attachments to the Internet-connected computers they carried in their pockets, and he kept thinking about that as he started another major project: building an energy-efficient dream home near Lake Tahoe.”

“‘I said, ‘How do I design this home when the primary interface to my world is the thing in my pocket?” says Fadell. He baffled architects with demands that the home's every feature, from the TV to the electricity supply, be ready for a world in which the Internet and mobile apps made many services more responsive,” Simonite reports. “When it came to choosing a programmable thermostat for his expensive eco-friendly heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, Fadell blew a gasket: ‘They were 500 bucks a pop, and they were horrible and doing nothing and brain-dead. And I was like, ‘Wait a second, I'll design my own.””

Advertisement: Nest – Learning Thermostat 2nd Generation – Stainless-Steel

Simonite reports, “Fadell's instincts turned out to be correct. Nest's first model, a striking stainless-steel-ringed disc with a circular display, went on sale in October 2011 to widespread acclaim. The HVAC industry, a sector as unexciting as the thermostats it sold, was astonished by the fresh ideas behind the device, which learned from its owners' behavior and could be controlled with a polished mobile app. The company released a second, more advanced thermostat in October 2012, and says sales of the two models have been brisk... Now the company is preparing to release another product. Details are scarce, but it seems that Fadell's thermostat epiphany has launched a technological campaign that will make every part of your home more intelligent.”

Much more in the full article here.

Lies, Damn Lies, And Robots

While it gives me little pleasure to call out New York Times writer John Broder for his clearly weird Tesla S test-drive, I do appreciate the way Elon and the team at Tesla called him to task for seemingly falsifying his experience in the car. I’d like to give Broder the benefit of the doubt – range anxiety is a real and frightening thing – Tesla’s Nate Silver-esque retort is quite illuminating and could change the reviewer dynamic.

Full disclosure: I write for the Times every few months and they’re nice guys, mostly.

I won’t bore you with more detail on the case (Darrell did that here) but I will note the value of the data provided by Tesla essentially destroys Broder’s punditry.

Broder is a car guy, and an opinionated one. He once wrote “yet the state of the electric car is dismal, the victim of hyped expectations, technological flops, high costs and a hostile political climate," a line that Musk quotes in his blog post as proof-positive that Broder is biased. While his argument in that piece is far more nuanced, that’s what sticks out. A look at his other stories hows a skeptical eye towards electric cars. He also claims that his side of the story is far simpler than Musk describes: . He writes:

Virtually everyone says that I should have plugged in the car overnight in Connecticut, particularly given the cold temperature. But the test that Tesla offered was of the Supercharger, not of the Model S, which we already know is a much-praised car. This evaluation was intended to demonstrate its practicality as a "normal use," no-compromise car, as Tesla markets it. Now that Tesla is striving to be a mass-market automaker, it cannot realistically expect all 20,000 buyers a year (the Model S sales goal) to be electric-car acolytes who will plug in at every Walmart stop.

Perhaps his experience was just as he described it – a muddle of confusion, fear, and poor planning. But Musk fights back with actual numbers and the outcome isn’t pretty. In fact, Musk claims that Broder drove the car around in tight circles for a little while just to get it down to zero range. Broder came at his test from the standpoint of a dude who likes to hop in a nice sedan and expects to drive a few hundred miles on a tank of gas. That’s not how you drive the Tesla… yet.

To be clear, Musk seems a little testy. Tesla has been burned once by Top Gear and getting a negative “review” by the NYT is a bad feeling (even if this wasn’t quite a review). But the most important aspect, and an aspect that may soon change the way we review almost everything electronic, was the ability for Tesla to pull logs right from the vehicle.

The Tesla S is a big computer. It’s also an experiment and, like any good experiment, produces data that is later assessed by experts. In the past, Broder could have driven a “dumb car” 100 miles an hour through the desert, run over a cactus, filled the car up with kerosene, and then slashed the tires. He could have then written a story about how the vehicle was sub par and the manufacturer would have little to say on the matter. Now, in an era where punditry rules the data will out.

No matter what Broder says in his defense, he can be proven wrong by the data. This should give tech reviewers pause. In a world when an objective review from one of the big boys can make or break a product, it is in the manufacturer’s best interests to spy on the reviewer. While I’m not saying this is right or particularly tasteful, I’m almost positive it will happen again.

We live in an era where almost everything we own is overpowered. There are plenty of extra cycles left on any common laptop, tablet, or other device to store a running log of performance and activity, a log that manufacturers should and will use to ding us. That this hasn’t happened more often in the electronics world suggests that marketing managers just didn’t think of it first. You can say that a product sucks, but you can’t argue with a robot when your review process is faulty.

I don’t feel bad for Broder. If what Musk showed is true, he elided quite a bit in this assessment and he got called out. I also don’t feel bad for Musk. He and his cars need to take their lumps. You can claim “big gas conspiracy” or “bias journalisms” all you want, but anything new is frightening and it’s the journalist’s job to warn us of potential danger. Proving that a journalist drives donuts in a parking lot for fun could be relevant to the value of his coverage, but what would have happened if Musk had handed him a thumb drive with all of the data on it after the test was over? Had Tesla explained all of the data to the journalist as a matter of course, Broder would probably singing a different tune. He would also be far more careful about his drive, just like a real Tesla owner would.

I understand the impetus to “get back” at a journalist. Using the robot to play gotcha is satisfying but it’s no better than a reviewer who fakes a review and gets away with it. A middle ground can, and must, be found.

NJ Accelerator TechLaunch Is Looking For Its Next Batch Of Great Garden State Startups

New Jersey's nascent startup scene is wedged between more established communities in Philadelphia and New York, but that hasn't stopped some ambitious teams like those at Princeton's TigerLabs and TechLaunch from trying to give the state a kick in the entrepreneurial pants. After putting on quite a show last November, TechLaunch is now looking for another 10-12 early-stage ventures to mentor and fund in a bid to put New Jersey on the startup map.

Participants in the incubator's 16-week LaunchPad program will get co-working space at Montclair State University, infusions of legal and accounting know-how and (perhaps most importantly) up to $25,000 in seed funding to get the project off the ground. Interested Garden State startups can apply to the program through February 22, though you'd best be prepared to stay in New Jersey for a while if you plan to throw your hat in the ring - TechLaunch is looking for startups that will stick around for awhile and help boost the state's economy (though the team won't resort to any Soprano-esque tactics if you eventually move out).

I really didn't know what to expect when I drove to Montclair State for the accelerator's first Demo Day, but the strength and polish of some of these early-stage ventures was a bit surprising, especially considering that co-founder and investor Mario Casabona is still fairly new to the startup scene. Some of them have already started picking up some traction to boot - Echolocation announced in mid-January that it locked up another $200K in seed funding in its bid to create a super-local version of Twitter to help locals communicate with each other, and CodeSquare's dead-simple mobile-reward redemption scheme has attracted over 600 local clients and attention from chains like Dunkin' Donuts.

Tesla's Elon Musk posts data from disastrous New York Times test drive

Angry at what he called the paper's 'fake' review, Tesla founder supplies charts that appear to contradict reviewer's account

The world of electric cars is usually seen as one of mildly eccentric do-gooders striving to solve the world's all-too real addiction to fossil fuels by developing vehicles that can be recharged with a plug.

But a New York Times test drive of a new model of Tesla electric sports car has instead now descended into a bitter war of words, allegations of lying and fraud and a rapidly ballooning media and technology scandal.

Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla as well as private space firm Space X, has now released detailed computer logs that he says are from the onboard computer of a car that New York Times reporter John Broder took for a disastrous test drive that ended with the vehicle being towed away.

According to Musk, the records reveal that Broder's account of his experience with the brand new Model S car differs in key areas from what the computer logs say happened. On a Tesla blog Musk stated: "Our Model S never had a chance with John Broder ... he simply did not accurately capture what happened and worked very hard to force our car to stop running."

Broder's initial report of his test drive in the newspaper certainly made painful reading. On a trip attempting to travel between Washington and Boston - to explore the creation of new recharging stations on the east coast - Broder detailed a nightmare journey. His Tesla, he said, repeatedly logged miles below what he expected and what the car told him the range was, leaving him limping along at slow speeds to conserve energy.

Eventually the car ran out of juice and had to be towed away. The headline on the piece read: "Stalled Out On Tesla's Electronic Highway".

Not surprisingly Tesla were offended. On Twitter and television, Musk called the story "a fake". Broder then in turn robustly defended his journalism as did the New York Times itself. In a Times motoring blog called Wheels, Broder wrote: "My account was not a fake. It happened just the way I described it." He then went on to tackle various assertions made by Musk and defended his writing.

Tesla's outrage and sensitivity might have been explained by a previous experience with the BBC's motoring show Top Gear. In December 2008, a review of the Tesla Roadster showed the car being pushed by the presenters into a hangar at the test track after apparently running out of charge. Tesla claimed the car had not actually run out of charge and sued for libel. The case was dismissed last year in a British court.

But one result of the spat with Top Gear was that Tesla then made sure that it always logged data from media test drives. Now Musk has published what he says is the data from Broder's trip and detailed how he says it directly contradicts key aspects of the Times' account.

He says the logs show that the car never fully run out of charge, even when a tow truck was called. Musk also says that - contrary to Broder's account - he never set the car in cruise control at 54 mph and never drove at a constant speed of 45 mph in order to conserve the charge.

It also addresses Broder's claims that he had to turn down the car's heating system to save energy on what was a freezing day. "At the point in time that he claims to have turned the temperature down, he in fact turned the temperature up to 74 F," Musk said in a blog post filled with graphs and data.

But, perhaps most damagingly of all, Musk claimed the reporter at one point appeared to have driven in circles around a car park to run down the charge. "After taking an unplanned detour through downtown Manhattan to give his brother a ride, the display said "0 miles remaining". Instead of plugging in the car, he drove in circles for over half a mile in a tiny, 100-space parking lot. When the Model S valiantly refused to die, he eventually plugged it in," Musk said.

Such serious allegations are unlikely to go unanswered by the New York Times and Broder. On his Twitter account, Broder promised a further response and posted a link to his initial defence of the piece. "Stay tuned," Broder said. Meanwhile, the New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan announced that she would be investigating the issue. "On Tesla I'm on it, as they say. May take some time. Meanwhile, look for a point-by-point response on Wheels blog soon," she said.

Sullivan later wrote a note on her blog on the Times' website in which she revealed that Musk had not yet returned a phone call and that she would be interviewing Broder later on Thursday. "I will keep reporting on this, and, for now, am simply telling readers what I know so far," she wrote.

She revealed that she intended to ask Tesla to fully release all its data so that others could examine it and acknowledged that the allegations made by Musk were devastating if shown to be accurate. "Mr Musk's contentions are devastating ones for any journalist," she said.

Elite Iranian general assassinated near Syria-Lebanon border

Syrian rebels claim responsibility for killing of General Hassan Shateri, a senior figure in the Revolutionary Guards

A senior commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards has been killed while travelling from Syria to Lebanon, according to Iranian authorities.

A man identified as General Hassan Shateri was reportedly assassinated by what Iranian officials described as "the agents and supporters of the Zionist regime" while travelling from Damascus to Beirut.

It was not immediately clear in which of the two countries Shateri was killed but a Syrian rebel commander said an Iranian official was killed in an attack carried out by Syrian rebels in Zabadani in southwestern Syria, close to the Lebanese border.

"General Hassan Shateri was martyred by the agents and supporters of the Zionist regime on his way to Beirut from Damascus," the semi-official Mehr news agency quoted the Revolutionary Guards' spokesman, Ramezan Sharif, as saying on Thursday.

Iran's state English-language television, Press TV, reported that Shateri was killed on Tuesday and described him as the man who "led the Iranian-financed reconstruction projects in the south of Lebanon". By pointing the finger at "Israeli agents", Sharif was probably referring to Syrian rebels whom Iranian officials portray as terrorist armed groups backed by Tel Aviv.

Iran is a staunch supporter of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, providing both with military and financial support. Syria gives Iran physical access to Lebanon and Hezbollah, which is strategically important for Tehran's leaders because of the group's geographical position in respect to Israel. Iran does not recognise Israel as a country and usually refers to it as "the Zionist regime".

After the 2006 war between the Israeli military and Hezbollah, Iran's elite forces bolstered their presence in southern Lebanon, saying they were willing to revamp the region's war-stricken infrastructure. This became a contentious issue for Tel Aviv but boosted the popularity of Iran among Hezbollah supporters.

Mehr said Shateri was a veteran of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war who in recent years "had devoted his time to the reconstruction of damaged areas after the 33-day Israeli war on Lebanon".

Iran's embassy in Lebanon, meanwhile, identified the dead man as Hessam Khoshnevis, leading to confusion that there might be a second death. But the circumstances given about Khoshnevis's death and his job title were similar to those of Shateri.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told AFP that Shateri was killed when a rebel group ambushed his vehicle while he was returning to Lebanon from Syria.

On Thursday Iran held a funeral ceremony for Shateri in Tehran that was attended by the foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, and the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Ali Jafari. Ghasem Suleimani, the man who heads the external arm of the Revolutionary Guards, known as the Quds force, members of which usually shun public ceremonies, also attended the funeral.

In May 2012, a senior Quds force commander conceded for the first time that Iranian forces were operating in Syria in support of the Assad regime.

"If the Islamic republic was not present in Syria, the massacre of people would have happened on a much larger scale," Ismail Gha'ani, the deputy head of the Quds force, said at the time.

In February 2012, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, went public to say that the Icountry has provided assistance to Hezbollah and Palestinian group Hamas.

"We have intervened in anti-Israel matters, and it brought victory in the 33-day war by Hezbollah against Israel in 2006, and in the 22-day war [in Gaza Strip]" he said at the time.

Facebook now lets you pay to promote content posted by friends

In case promoting your own Facebook posts hasn't been sucking enough money out of your wallet, the social network is now giving you the chance to highlight content posted by friends. You won't even need permission from your Facebook pals if you want to pay a small chunk of change and give their status update or uploaded photo prominent news feed placement. However, Facebook is no stranger to privacy concerns, so the company is placing some firm limits on who will be seeing the highlighted material. "You can only promote posts to the people that your friend originally shared with," says a company spokesperson. "If you have mutual friends, they’ll see that you shared it and promoted it." Additionally, only users with less than 5,000...

Netflix used subscriber data to make 'House of Cards' a hit

Netflix recently said its original drama "House of Cards" is the streaming video service's most watched program "right now," but it didn't get that way by accident, as a new profile of the company by Salon's Andrew Leonard reveals. Netflix closely tracks subscriber viewing habits across all programs, monitoring how many times viewers replay sex scenes, for example. The company's tracking showed that viewers who enjoyed the original BBC series "House of Cards," also tended to like movies featuring Kevin Spacey, the lead character of the Netflix US remake. Such tracking could guide the development of TV shows going forward, not necessarily for the better, as Leonard argues.

Apple relaxes 3-device limitation for employee friends and family purchases

Whether you take this as a sign that Apple inventory levels are now in better balance, or simply that Apple is feeling a little more generous with their employees, it looks like the previous 3-device limit on friends and family purchases has been relaxed. Now, before you start looking for pop-up sales next to your local lemonade stand, reasonable limits on EPP 15% discount program purchases are still in place. What's reasonable? According to people at Apple who noticed the policy change:

Use your discretion when determining "reasonable quantities" purchases for friends and family. There isn't a specific number limit -- it's a judgment call. For example, buying iPod devices as gifts for your nieces and nephews at a 15 percent discount is fine. However, advertising a 15 percent discount on Apple products for all of your Facebook friends is not. If you have questions about what is considered reasonable, contact your HR representative.

Looks like a nice way to help employees and their loved ones save a little cash, while returning some of it right back to Apple as well. Don't everyone with a friend or family member at Apple start pestering them all at once.

MacBreak Weekly 337: Put Another Book on the Fire

Leo Laporte, Andy Ihnatko, Don McAllister and I talk iWatch rumors, a lawsuit from Apple shareholders, the reason Tim Cook isn't building a car, and more.

Subscribe or download: TWiT.tv

Crashlytics Makes Enterprise Features Free for All

Crashlytics, the mobile crash-reporting and analysis platform that was acquired by Twitter last month, said today that it will make its enterprise-level features available for free. In a company blog post, the company’s co-founder, Wayne Chang, said, “The features and usage we used to charge for based on limits are now unlimited across the board.”

Movie Tickets, Real Estate and a New Widget for Google Now

The Android app Google Now — with its promise to provide personalized, highly relevant, in-the-moment information — is one of the more interesting projects in consumer tech these days. But at this stage, its developments are incremental. Today, Google is releasing a trio of updates to the product that help users get stuff done quickly.

The first is a richer Google Now “card” for movies that incorporates movie reviews from Rotten Tomatoes and ticket purchasing from Fandango.

So, a scenario where this might come in handy:

1. Google detects a pattern of searching for movies, perhaps on a certain day of the week
2. around that day, it starts showing a card with movie reviews and a way to directly purchase tickets
3. a user buys a ticket
4. that user arrives at the theater location at the time of the movie, and Google Now automatically pulls up a mobile ticket so she can walk directly in.

What’s odd about Google Now — but also, key to the philosophy of the product — is that this all happens in the background. There’s no real way to go to Google Now and explicitly request it to do something for you. Instead, you have to trust the great Googley Moogley machine to automatically detect what might be useful and do it for you.

“If we don’t have anything for you, we shouldn’t notify you and risk being annoying,” explained Google Now product manager Baris Gultekin today. “We like to be as relevant as possible.”

Next, Google Now has also built a real estate card through a partnership with Zillow. So if Google Now detects that a user is in the market for a new home via repeat real estate searches, it will trigger a card with nearby listings in the area. And when a user with that card walks into an open house, Google Now will detect the location and show information about the house.

What’s next for the Google Now product roadmap is not some giant leap forward, according to Gultekin. Rather, it’s more of these incremental improvements.

“There are so many different situations when our users need help,” Gultekin explained. “My goal is to anticipate all your needs and anticipate the right thing when you need it. It’s a huge undertaking. We are basically trying to focus on trying to get you information you need when you need it before you ask.”

But the Google Now team — which originated as a 20 percent project in Google Maps but now is part of Android — is making one more change today to be a little less subtle than it has been.

Since it was debuted at the Google I/O developer conference last summer, Google Now has been available on certain Android devices when the user swipes upward. That’s cool, and something no other Android app has access to, but if you don’t know to swipe up, you might never see it.

So, also in today’s update, there’s going to now be a Google Now widget for users’ home screens that automatically updates to show a glance at the top-most card.

Logitech C930e Web Camera Unveiled For Business

Logitech has this week unveiled a new Logitech C930e Web camera which they have specifically designed for use by businesses. The new Logitech Webcam C930e builds on technology used in previous models such as the Logitech C920-C.

The Logitech C930e camera is equipped with a 90-degree field of view, and is fitted with a Carl Zeiss-certified lens is that has been created to eliminate fish-eye distortion.

HTC Starts Counting Down To HTC One (HTC M7) Launch Event

HTC its Mobile World Congress press event next week on the 19th of February, the company is expected to announce their flagship Android smartphone, the HTC One or HTC M7, and now they have posted a countdown timer on their website.

HTC is rumored to be introducing some new camera technology will the launch of the HTC One or HTC M7, the handset is rumored to feature a 13 megapixel camera, which is made up of three 4.3 megapixel sensors.

Apple Becomes Top-Selling Phone Manufacturer in Japan After Six-Year Battle [iOS Blog]

The iPhone was the best-selling phone in Japan throughout the whole of the last year, the first time the title has ever been taken from a Japanese firm, according to Counterpoint Research's Country Market Share Report (via The Next Web). The number one slot had been held by local firm Sharp for the previous six years.

Apple grabbed 15% of the market, just ahead of local firms Sharp and Fujitsu, at 14% each. Apple had previously taken the number one slot for single quarters as new product launches hit, seen with the 4S launch in 2011, but has never before held its position for an entire year.

Samsung, LG and Huawei all increased their shares, with non-Japanese companies now owning over half the market for the first time. Japan has always been a difficult market for overseas manufacturers, with non-standard networks and an early lead in sophisticated web-enabled feature phones limiting demand for smartphones. Electronista suggests that the shift is in large part due to a carrier battle as Softbank and KDDI challenged market leader NTT Docomo.

Both saw having the iPhone as a strategic advantage over the island nation's largest carrier, NTT Docomo, and promoted the iPhone heavily. Docomo responded with campaigns that emphasized foreign-made Android phones, the first time it had aggressively marketed foreign brands. As a result, the Japanese market had more than 50 percent of the available share split between foreign-owned companies (primarily Apple, Samsung and LG) for the first time.

Counterpoint Research says that the shift in popularity from advanced feature phones to smartphones is likely to be a permanent one.

Japan was once considered to be like a Galapagos Island, an isolated terrain, in terms of mobile technology. It had its own unique digital cellular technology. It was far more advanced than any market in the world and it seemed nearly impossible for any foreign technology company to penetrate the market. Motorola had failed and Nokia had failed. The wave of smartphones has changed the situation now and it looks like the Japanese market is a market that can be transformed after all for better or worse.

Shares of Television Set Maker Loewe Jump as Apple Acquisition Rumors Resurface

Reuters reports that shares of German television set maker Loewe jumped 43% today as rumors of a possible acquisition by Apple resurfaced. A trader was quoted as saying that Apple is looking to bid 4 euros per share for Loewe, but a company spokesman claimed that Loewe was not aware of any such offer.

Rumors of an Apple acquisition of Loewe first emerged in May of last year, dying when Loewe said there was "absolutely nothing to it". It is not known what has led to the renewed speculation today.

While Loewe's luxury TV designs are very much in line with what might be expected from the long-anticipated Apple television set, given that design is one of Apple's core strengths it is not immediately clear what unique contributions Loewe might bring to the table. The German manufacturer is 28% owned by Sharp, 13% by the company's management, 11% by storage company Lacie, and the rest freely traded.

As of the time of writing, Loewe shares were up 33% to 3.63 euros ($4.89), valuing the company at 53 million euros.

Exploratorium App Explores the World of Sound

The folks at the Exploratorium in San Francisco are some of the best in the world at designing participatory exhibits that teach visitors about their own perception and the world around them through direct experience.

The Exploratorium has long had a website — it was the world's 600th (or so) in 1993 — but the tablet is perhaps a more fitting venue for its craft, given that the devices are by their nature social because they can be easily shared, and that touch provides a less abstract method of interaction.

The Exploratorium’s first free iPad app, Color Uncovered, has been downloaded one million times since late 2011.

Today, it’s launching a second, called Sound Uncovered, with a set of fun and mind-bending audio illusions, manipulations and tests.

Jean Cheng, who led the team that built the app, took me through a series of mini-iPad exhibits on a recent visit to the still-under-construction new Exploratorium building on the water at Pier 15 in San Francisco.

For instance, there’s a Mobius strip kind of demo of a chord progression, where it’s impossible to find the highest note. There’s another one where you move a slider until you can hear a high-pitched sound, and the app estimates your age. There’s another that plays your voice backward so you can teach yourself audio palindromes.

They’re not necessarily things you’d do over and over again, but they’re pretty neat in the moment, with explanations of what phenomena are occurring.

Asked what ages Sound Uncovered is appropriate for, Cheng declined to say. “Anyone’s experience is authentic,” she said. “This is for curious people of all ages. It’s not about answers, it’s about a ‘what happens’ style of thinking.”

Sound Uncovered was developed with a grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and the Exploratorium doesn’t have any particular ambition of making money from it.

Facebook's Rose: Content Discovery Has Always Been Social, and It Always Will Be

Facebook likes to think of itself as a gateway to the huge markets that have arisen around the social graphs of its users. There’s no arguing with that. Facebook’s audience is a massive one, and there’s obvious value in reaching it. The question is, how do companies do that, and do it effectively? As VP of partnerships at Facebook, Dan Rose is charged with convincing media companies that Facebook’s audience is one worth reaching, and then delivering on that promise. Not always a sure thing, as Facebook’s high-profile falling out with General Motors last year shows.

During a wide-ranging interview at D: Dive Into Media, Rose talked about how Facebook views media, and how media should view Facebook.

“Facebook is primarily two core pillars — identity and sharing,” Rose said, adding that both pillars are part of Facebook’s media pitch.

“From an identity perspective, so much of who we are and how we identify ourselves comes from what we read and what we watch,” Rose continued. “So our identity platform can’t be complete without media being part of it. Similarly, the sharing piece can’t be complete without status updates about news stories, music friends are listening to, updates about movies people are seeing.”

The high-level principle driving this is the idea of finding the perfect balance between great user experience and delivering audience to platform partners.

“At its core, what we’re really striving to do is find the perfect equilibrium from a great user experience and a strong platform that developers and partners will continue to invest in,” Rose said. “… We need to keep the news feed interesting, and one of the ways we do that is through media.”

At the same time, however, Rose said Facebook must “honor” content, and presumably appetite for audience and buzz that’s ever-present behind it.

“We think it’s our job to honor content,” Rose said. “Media content deserves to be honored and respected in the news feed. For example, we recently increased the size of images from media partners. That’s more engaging for users, and for partners it’s great, because click-throughs and engagement increased.”

Media content also deserves to be consumed, says Rose. And here, too, Facebook plays a big role, and hopes to play an even bigger one in the future.

“How did you hear about ‘Downton Abbey’?” Rose asked. “I discovered it on Facebook. I kept seeing it pop up in my news feed. The simple fact is most of us find the TV shows we enjoy by listening to suggestions from our friends. That’s the primary discovery mechanism for content right now. Imagine a future, though, in which you turn on the TV and see a feed of all the shows your friends watch. We think that’s a very compelling idea. Content discovery always has been and always will be social.”

Additional Notes From the Session

• On mobile: “So many things are unlocked on mobile. You don't bring your computer to a restaurant or a party.”
• On Zynga: “I don’t think we walked away from Zynga at all. They built a large and successful business on our platform. … We still spend a lot of time with Zynga.”
• On Instagram: In the past, Facebook acquired small companies for talent, with Instagram being the first company it bought for the product. However, Rose said that more deals for product and technologies are likely.

[ See post to watch video ]

Apple’s App Store, Mac App Store, iTunes Store, and iBookstore down for some, slow for many

On Tuesday evening, Apple’s App Store over at itunes.apple.com started experiencing significant slowdowns. We first noticed the store’s pages stopped loading properly at 4:23PM EST, meaning the outage has already lasted over half an hour at the time of writing.

While this means you can’t access apps such as Facebook for iPhone from the company’s website, a quick check on iOS devices shows that this issue is not affecting the app store on Apple’s mobile devices (aside from app developer pages not loading). The issue is, however, also causing problems for the iTunes store (apps and media content) on the desktop, the Mac App Store, and the iBookstore.

For some, those stores are not loading at all, while for others they are loading but take forever to do so. Apple’s status page for its Services, Stores, and iCloud showed green across the board up until 4:43PM EST, at which point it showed problems for the App Store, the iTunes Store, the Mac App Store, and the iBookstore:

Twitter users started to notice as well, with the earliest report coming in at 4:51PM EST. A search for app store down on the social network shows that more users started reporting the problems right after.

We have contacted Apple about this issue. We will update this article if we hear back.

Image credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Logitech Keyboard for Apple Handy, Pricey

Earlier this week, I received a Logitech Bluetooth Easy-Switch Keyboard to review. Does it resolve my wireless keyboard issues? Is it a good edition to your computing rig? Let's take a quick look and see.

I began my Mac journey in 2006 when I bought my first 15-inch MacBook Pro. Truth be told, I bought it to be a Windows machine. Even then, the high quality, value-retaining hardware was difficult to resist; and Apple's Boot Camp made it easy to run Windows on my Mac. Today, I'm a full Mac convert, and prefer using OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion on my early 2011 15-inch MacBook Pro.

My desktop setup includes a Hengedock vertical dock, Thunderbolt display, Apple full-sized USB keyboard and Apple Magic Mouse. I swapped out my hard drive for a 256GB SSD and further tricked it out by pulling out the SuperDrive and putting in OWC's Data Doubler, a 2.5-inch drive mounting bracket and 480GB SSD, for a total of 736GB of lightning quick, solid state storage. I have a USB Blu-ray DVD drive sitting on my desk for those times I need access to optical storage. It's a nice setup and one that works well for me.

The one thing that's really missing from this setup is a wireless keyboard. I have an Apple Wireless Keyboard, but there were some things about it just didn't work for me – size, no backlight and double AA batteries. Those shortcomings kinda killed it for me, and so it sits in its box.

Size, Look and Feel

The Logitech Bluetooth Easy-Switch Keyboard is designed for use with Apple products, and as such is covered in the same type of material as your Mac Laptop or Mini – with Aluminum. This finish makes the package look like it belongs – like the Bluetooth Easy-Switch Keyboard was meant to be a part of your computing rig. It's similar in shape and size to the Apple Wireless Keyboard, but is $30 USD more expensive. The keys are spaced at about the same distance and are approximately the same size. As such, touch-typing on it is easy and comfortable. Key travel is a bit firmer than you might think, compared to both the Apple Wireless Keyboard and the full-sized, USB keyboard.

The biggest issue I had with the keyboard's size and feel was that it laid flat on my desk. Both the Apple Wireless and full-sized USB Keyboard are raised at approximately 10-12 degrees, to facilitate a better typing angle. The Logitech keyboard lies flat, requiring you to hover your hands over it in order to type. With other keyboards, you can rest the heal of your palm against the typing surface or table you have it on. This isn't a deal breaker, but will require some getting used to in terms of typing style and comfort.

Wireless Communications, Battery Power & Software

The keyboard uses Bluetooth 3.0 to communicate with your Mac and two other iDevices and requires Snow Leopard 10.6.8 or later on the desktop and iOS 4.0 or later on your iDevice. While the device works and functions as it's intended to without Logitech's Preferences Pane, it's a good idea to install it. Without it, you're not going to be able to control how the keyboard's function keys work – either as standard function keys, or as special keys. While Apple's standard keyboard preference pane does this for nearly all other keyboards, it doesn't work with Logitech's, and this was perhaps the most frustrating thing about the device for me. I had to install the preference pane just for this purpose.

As I mentioned, the keyboard works just fine without it. You really don't miss anything else without it, and the on-screen visuals that it also supplies is a nice to have. However, none of it is needed in order to have the keyboard function.

When I got the keyboard, it needed charging. It uses a standard microUSB cable for that purpose, and you can either use the included cable or one for any other device you might have lying around. The keyboard was usable during charging, and charged in a couple of hours. So far, it's lasted just over a week on the charge it took. In fact, according to the Logitech Preference Pane, the battery level for the keyboard doesn't look to have moved. A charge should last you weeks of casual to moderate use when left on in between uses.

The big selling point of the keyboard is its ability to swap between your Mac and your iDevice with little to no issues. I'm happy to say this worked flawlessly for me. Pairing the keyboard to both my Mac and iPad required nothing more than turning it on, choosing one of three different communication channels and then allowing the keyboard to find its host. I was typing and switching between both – on the fly – with nothing more than a tap of F1 or F2 (or F3...the three communication channels I mentioned). The keyboard didn't miss a beat after the host device acknowledged the connection. It's really kinda cool.

Conclusion

At $99.99 USD, the Logitech Bluetooth Easy-Switch Keyboard is a bit on the pricey side for me. While impressive looking and working well, I was only slightly impressed. The biggest draw to the keyboard is its ability to switch between any Mac or iDevice with a touch of a function key. Unless you're going to carry it with you when you travel – and some might – this ability isn't as big a deal as you might think. I don't see how you'd swap between your Mac and your iPad or iPhone in the same computing session -- not when you have a much better screen on your Mac or desktop monitor and can easily sync content from it to your Mac.

The ability to store more than one wireless profile on it is nice, but I've been able to use my Apple Wireless keyboard with both my Mac and my iPad. I wasn't able to switch between them as quickly and easily, but again, I likely won't use both in the same computing session so it doesn't matter.

Is the Bluetooth Easy-Switch Keyboard from Logitech for you? That's a matter of personal preference. Right now, I'm on the fence. It's not bad at all, but I've got other options that are just as good, and I think I'm happy with what I have right now.

Logitech Bluetooth Easy-Switch Keyboard
Price: $99.99 list
Pros: Comfortable to type with and use, small, long battery life, backlit
Cons: Requires proprietary preference pane to get full functionality, expensive, lays flat on the desktop

EasyAcc 13.3 inch Laptop Ultrabook Leather Sleeve Carry Case Cover for Apple Macbook Air 13.3 , Asus Zenbook UX31, Acer Aspire S3, Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, Samsung SERIES 9 NP900X3B, Toshiba Satellite Z830 Ultrabook (Size: 13.3 inch, Color: Black)

EasyAcc 13.3 inch Laptop Ultrabook Leather Sleeve Carry Case Cover for Apple Macbook Air 13.3 , Asus Zenbook UX31, Acer Aspire S3, Lenovo IdeaPad U300s, Samsung SERIES 9 NP900X3B, Toshiba Satellite Z830 Ultrabook (Size: 13.3 inch, Color: Black)

• Material: Ultra soft high quality synthetic leather like the real deal; Lined with soft leather interior that cleans your MacBook Air every time you slide it in.
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Material
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Custom-Made
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Macbook Air 13.3 (325 227 3-17mm 1.35Kg)

Samsung Galaxy S lll Guide: Tips, Tricks, Beginner’s Guide, Shortcuts & more! Reviews

Samsung Galaxy S lll Guide: Tips, Tricks, Beginner’s Guide, Shortcuts & more!

Welcome to the Ultimate Guide to your Samsung Galaxy S lll.
The Samsung Galaxy S III is a powerful smartphone with tons of innovative features. It boasts a relatively large screen and the battery lifespan is above average. Not to mention, it is chock-full of features that would make purchasing any other smartphone seem like a bad choice. The S III was named “Phone of the Year” at the T3 Gadget Awards. It beat other phones including the HTC One X and iPhone 4S.

7 reasons why Apple’s unannounced ‘iWatch’ won’t fly

“Apple is reportedly experimenting with wristwatches made of curved glass, a project that could add another profitable product to the company’s iOS arsenal,” Thomas Claburn writes for InformationWeek. “Understandable as it may be that the tech industry would like to see wearable devices follow the same explosive growth trajectory as the mobile market experienced over the last six years, Apple, Google and other companies in this space have yet to demonstrate there’s any mass-market value to buckling, strapping, mounting or otherwise attaching small, Internet-aware computers to one’s body.”

“There is certainly niche-market value: The Nike + iPod sensor, the Nike Fuelband and other activity-tracking gadgets like the Jawbone UP wristband are loved by some,” Claburn writes. “But these specialized gizmos will never have the broad impact of the iPhone.”

7 Reasons An iWatch Won’t Fly
1. Subscription Fees
2. Battery Life
3. Sensors Don’t Matter
4. Everything Watches Can Do, Phones Can Do Better
5. Notifications Are The New Spam
6. NFC Isn’t A Point of Differentiation
7. Cost

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Take: This world gets stupider with each passing day.

Tommy, a word of advice: Wait for Apple to actually release something first before you start your silly lists.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Dangerfrogg" for the heads up.]

Five takeaways from Apple CEO Tim Cook’s Goldman Sachs keynote

“If you needed any indication that the Apple ecosystem is growing, you got it this morning: Apple CEO Tim Cook said the company has paid out $8 billion to developers, up from $7 billion earlier this year,” Matthew Lynley writes for The Wall Street Journal.

“Apple CEO Tim Cook just wrapped up a big keynote address at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet conference this morning. There weren't a whole lot of earth-shattering surprises, but Cook did reveal a few new numbers that weren't otherwise known,” Lynley writes. “Things are moving pretty quickly over in Cupertino, it seems, and Cook is extremely bullish.”

Here are a few other takeaways from the keynote:
Retail is still a major focus
Specs don't matter
Halo effects matter
Services are also important
There's an enormous amount of head room for smartphones

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader "Arline M." for the heads up.]

Spotify launches in Italy and Poland, expanding its presence to 23 territories

Reports suggested it was coming, but today Spotify finally brought its popular music streaming service to Italy and Poland, taking its total number of territories up to 23.

The Italian launch is closely linked to the Sanremo music festival, which will act as a marketing push, as artists give the songs exclusively to Spotify. However, it appears the Swedish company has pushed its service live a little earlier than expected, with the event set to commence on February 12.

When Italian and Polish users visit the Spotify website, they are presented with information on the music streaming service, as well as pricing information. Like in all the other countries in which it operates, Spotify offers three account options — Free, Unlimited and Premium.

The free service offers access to millions of tracks, but comes complete with advertising after a specified number of listens. The Unlimited option does away with those restrictions 4.99/PLN9.99 per month, while Premium adds mobile access for 9.99/PLN19.99 a month.

Spotify launches in Italy with the help of former Googler Veronica Diquattro, who joined the company from Google in November 2012.

At Google, Diquattro was tasked planning and implementing the company’s Google Play launch in Italy, as well as managing the “start-up phase of two vendor offices for Google Play in Ireland and UK, supporting the entire EMEA market,” according to her LinkedIn profile.

We first got wind of probable launch last year, when job posting emerged for both countries online. They will be added to its existing launches in Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Faroe Islands, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Elon Musk calls NY Times review of the Tesla Model S ‘fake,’ citing vehicle log data as proof

Following a less than enthusiastic review of the Tesla Model S vehicle in the New York Times, Tesla founder Elon Musk has publicly responded. According to several tweets, log data from the vehicle indicates that the reviewer in question, John Broder, did not test the car as he reported.

Here are the key tweets, in reverse chronological order:

NYTimes article about Tesla range in cold is fake. Vehicle logs tell true story that he didn’t actually charge to max & took a long detour.

Tesla blog coming soon detailing what actually happened on Broder’s NYTimes “range test”. Also lining up other journalists to do same drive.

Tesla data logging is only turned on with explicit written permission from customers, but after Top Gear BS, we always keep it on for media.

If Musk is correct, and Broder did in fact fail to properly charge the car, and then managed to forget to mention an extensive route diversion, his white-knuckle notes concerning the battery capacity and range of the Model S will be in question.

Given that his battery issues were the crux of his review, this could be damning. Naturally, the length of the claimed ‘detour’ will matter – getting lost temporarily would likely be excusable, for example – but if it exceeds something reasonable, its exclusion will be quite unacceptable.

If you were wondering just what Musk meant by mentioning the ‘Top Gear BS,’ allow me to help. Tesla sued the Top Gear program for libel, following a program on its vehicles. Also using data logged from the vehicle, Tesla refuted parts of the program. For example, the BBC had to explain a shot involving it pushing a Tesla: “the tested Tesla was filmed being pushed into the shed in order to show what would happen if the Roadster had run out of charge.” Well then.

The larger controversy was well distilled by our own Matthew Panzarino: “Top Gear talked smack about the car, but Tesla proved that they broke one car and didn’t test the other like they said they had.” Thus, it frankly isn’t surprising that Musk would keep tabs on just what reviewers were up to.

Update: A New York Times statement as reported by CNBC doesn’t mince its words: “Jan. 10 article recounting a reporter’s test drive in a Tesla Model S was completely factual [...] Any suggestion that the account was ‘fake’ is, of course, flatly untrue.”

It is now time for Musk to post his data.

Top Image Credit: randychiu

Microsoft Surface Pro Launch Hit With Supply Shortages

On Saturday Microsoft launched the second version of their Surface tablet, the Microsoft Surface pro, but it would appear that the launch of the device was hit with supply shortages.

According to a recent report by ZDNet, customers who wanted to purchase the Microsoft Surface Pro had a hard time getting their hands on the device, with an apparent lack of supply of the 128GB models and also the 64GB models.

Dolphin Emulator For Android Aims To Bring Wii And GameCube Gaming To Android Devices (video)

Android owners that enjoy playing Wii and GameCube games, might be please to learn that new emulator called Dolphin has been created that could bring support for the Nintendo consoles to Android devices.

Currently Dolphin for Android is still under development but the source code is available for you to compile yourself if you fancy a look. Watch the video after the jump to learn more about the Dolphin Emulator for Android project and see it in action.

Iran Is Mass Producing Knock-Offs of the US Drone It "Downed"

Iranian state television reports that the country's military has not only successfully decrypted surveillance video from the Scan Eagle drone "captured" last December but have reverse engineered the avionics and are now rolling out a domestically-produced version of its own.

According to Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Navy, the IRGC Naval and Aerospace Division has already deployed the home-brew models.

His comments regarding the production start up reportedly came on December 17th, less than two weeks after the drone was supposedly captured of the Iranian coast on December 4th. Even with the Scan Eagle's primarily off-the-shelf construction, such a rapid turn-around from discovery to replication seems abrupt at best. Let's just hope they are more air-worthy than that "stealth fighter" the IRGC debuted last week. [Press TV via UAS Vision]

The Science of Love: It's Kind of Like Cocaine

Valentine's Day. Blerg. But hey, if we're going to be surrounded by corporate sponsored true love, we may as well have some fun. Here's a video from ASAPScience describing the way love works, scientifically. It's a little more complicated than you might have realized.

First, well, yes. It's like cocaine. Basically, it makes it easier for us to experience pleasure. But it's also key in protecting our young and relatives. That makes sense, since we're created by an unbroken line of organisms going back to the very first life form. So we must have evolved to love our young pretty hard! So there, love is a helicopter parent. Enjoy Valentine's Day. [YouTube]

iPad at Work: for BMW Showroom Geniuses

We've seen a number of case studies of the iPad in use in retail stores to enhance the customer experience and increase sales. Now the iPad is set to feature in another blue-chip retail environment: BMW showrooms - as Advertising Age reports:

Inspired by Apple retail stores, BMW is requiring dealers to hire young, tech-savvy employees to handle questions about its vehicles on the showroom floor.

The “BMW Genius Everywhere” program is slated to go nationwide in about a year, with specially trained employees — many of them college students — patrolling dealerships with iPads in hand. The BMW “geniuses” will be available to inform shoppers about vehicles and features, but they will not sell cars.

The BMW Geniuses are not salesman, and are paid a salary only - no commission on sales. Instead their approach is said to be similar to that of Genius staff in Apple retail stores - so they act as sort of product 'explainers and troubleshooters' - answering questions and offering free technical support.

This program was successfully trialed in the UK last year, is rolling out across Europe now, and is set to start in the US later in 2013.

Quite a nice bit of work for a tablet that's supposedly 'only for consumption' I'd say. Shocking that BMW didn't want to go with those tablets with the clicky clicky keyboards and the dancers.

iPad Tips: How to Change Your iTunes Store Location

This is a question I see come up a lot in iPad and iOS forums: how to change your location for iTunes and the App Store. Luckily, it's very easy to do - right on the iPad itself. Here's how:

– Open the Settings app on your iPad.

– Tap on the entry for iTunes & App Stores in the left sidebar - as shown above.

– Tap on the very first entry on the iTunes & App Stores page - the one that says Apple ID and shows your ID.

– You'll get an Apple ID popup dialog. Tap on the View Apple ID button.

– Enter your password when prompted.

– Once you've signed in with your password you'll see the Account Settings screen next. Tap on the bar labeled Country/Region - and select the location you want your ID to be associated with.

** Please note that if you have an active iTunes Match subscription you'll be prompted to cancel it before you can change your store setting.

You can also make these changes in the App Store app - by going down to the bottom of the Featured area to the Quick Links section, tapping on your Apple ID, and then following the same steps as above.

That's it - hope this was helpful.