Hasta La Gadget!

Amid reports of shipments being delayed due to unprecedented demand, after what seemed like an excruciating wait, Samsung’s latest flagship Android smartphone is now available in the U.S. Some of the major carriers in the country are offering this device to their customers, which comes with 16, 32 and 64GB storage options. The cost goes up with internal storage, and if you’ve your sights set on the 16GB one, keep in mind that almost half of its storage is taken up by apps that Samsung has preloaded in it.

There will be a number of apps that will come preloaded on the Samsung Galaxy S4. These apps, among various others, include ChatOn messaging client, S Health and S Travel. A report indicates that these apps take up 45% of the onboard storage in 16GB Galaxy S4, leaving the user with just 8.82GB of free storage right out of the box. The work around for this is either to splurge on a model with higher storage, or make use of the external memory expansion capability through microSD cards. The Galaxy S4 supports external expansion up to 64GB.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: Nokia Announces Event On 9th Of May In India, Instagram And Temple Run 2 Rumored To Be Announced Alongside Nokia Lumia 928,

Undercover cops in San Francisco are looking to cut down the amount of iPhone thefts there are in their city. However, these cops are taking a different approach than just running after iPhone robbers and cuffing them. Instead, they are going after the buyers of the stolen products, in a scheme that they call “cutting the head off the snake”. San Francisco Police Captain Joe Garrity says that if the iPhone thieves aren’t able to sell their goods, there’s no market for them.

In the scheme, an undercover cop, Tom Lee, dresses up as a normal civilian and speaks like the buyers that he is targeting. He has worked at an Apple retail store before, so he knows all of the lingo of persuading people to purchase his goods. When approaching a buyer, he confirms that the iPhone he is selling is stolen, and instead of offering a price for the phone, he asks the potential buyer to make an offer.

Once the buyer offers to purchase the phone, and begins the transaction process, Lee signals nearby undercover officers to come in and arrest the buyer. With this scheme, the police officers are poisoning the market for stolen electronic goods and making would-be buyers think twice before making an illegal transaction. However, this scheme has stirred up some controversy in the city.

Chesa Boudin, a San Francisco Public Defender, says,

“You’re basically creating crime or luring people to commit crimes. It’s an outrageous waste of resources.”

George Gascon, a San Francisco District Attorney, states that these operations “yield little deterrence” and don’t really lower iPhone thefts in the city. Instead, he believes that these sting operations fuel the fire for more iPhone thefts. He says,

“The numbers don’t appear to be abating at all. This is like a drug war — the more arrests you make for drug use, the more drug use seems to go on.”

Many have voiced their outrage over these schemes, saying that it’s entrapment and that the police should allocate their resources to more pressing matters. These schemes have been used in other cities as well, including New York, where crime rate has increased up to 5 times due to iPhone thefts. Police believe that by going after the buyers, they will be able to create fear in the market that will hopefully kill the demand for stolen iPhones and in turn reduce iPhone thefts in their cities.

[via Huffington Post]

Undercover cops sell iPhones in black market scheme is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

A new vulnerability has been discovered in Adobe Reader by security firm McAfee. The vulnerability makes it possible for people to see how a PDF file has been used. This un-patched security issue exists in every version of Adobe Reader, according to Haifei Li of McAfee. The latest sandboxed Adobe Reader XI, version 11.0.2, also has this vulnerability. It doesn’t allow code execution, meaning that this flaw isn’t a problem that should set off alarm bells, but it could pose a certain kind of threat.

The vulnerability only allows a sender to see where and when a PDF file has been opened. It is not entirely harmless though. This security flaw could be used by hackers to gain sensitive information such as ISP details and IP addresses  McAfee hasn’t been able to pinpoint who is exploiting this Adobe Reader flaw as yet, but believes that an “email tracking service” provider is involved. Adobe hasn’t commented on this issue as yet, though McAfee says that they have reported this security flaw to Adobe, who haven’t confirmed to them whether they’ll be releasing a patch in the near future.

By Ubergizmo. Related articles: New Wikimedia Commons App Makes Photo Donation To Wikipedia A Breeze, Evernote Food For Android Update Brings New User Interface,

The Winter Olympics are set to begin in 2014, which means the Olympic torch will once again be carried around the world before it finally lands in the Olympic Stadium in Russia to mark the beginning of the sporting event. However, the torch will take a trip to space where it will be taken on a spacewalk for the first time ever.

Two cosmonauts will be making the spacewalk along with the Olympic torch in order to celebrate the games that will be taking place in Russia. The torch walk is scheduled to begin on October 7 this year, and it will span 123 days and travel more than 34,000 miles. The torch will also be carried by 14,000 different people, which would be a record for Olympic torch walks.

The deputy head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, Vitaly Davydov, said that the torch that will be carried to space will be “the same as the torch at the Olympics,” although the torch will not be lit on its way to space, since open flames are prohibited from being carried inside a spaceship while traveling to the ISS.

The spacewalk with the torch is set to take place in November, and it’s expected to return back to Earth on November 12. Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazansky are expected to perform the space walk with the torch. Other places that the torch is scheduled to go to is Mount Elbrus (the highest peak of Europe), the bottom of Lake Baikal, and the North Pole.

[via Russian Times]

2014 Olympic torch to be carried in space is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama promised on Monday to ensure that scientific research is insulated from partisan politics, as government-funded projects come under attack from Republicans in Congress.

He made his remarks at the National Academy of Sciences, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary.

“I will keep working to make sure that our scientific research does not fall victim to political maneuvers or agendas that in some ways would impact on the integrity of the scientific process. That’s what’s going to maintain our standards of scientific excellence for years to come.”

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