Hasta La Gadget!

Another day, another round of leaks from former CIA technical analyst Edward Snowden. This man blew the whistle on U.S. National Security Agency’s electronic spying programs, and he continues to leak highly classified documents. Documents provided to The New York Times, The Guardian and ProPublica reveal that the NSA has been siphoning off personal data through popular mobile applications, internally referred to as “leaky apps.” Apparently the NSA has collaborated with its British counterpart on this program, the Government Communications Headquarter or GCHQ.

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NSA Reportedly Siphoning Off Personal Data Through Popular Mobile Apps original content from Ubergizmo.

ATM PINs usually consist of a series of numbers chosen by you. However given that they are only numbers and given that there is a disturbing amount of people out there who choose really bad passwords, someone could easily figure out your ATM PIN. So what can one do then? Well according to a company called TRI-PIN, they have developed a new system in which they claim would make it much harder for someone to figure out your PIN, simply because in addition to numbers, this system will utiize colors and shapes as well, thus adding on to the numerous possibilities which only a computer will probably be able to figure out, although admittedly it could take a while to run all the different permutations.

According to the company, “A user chooses a PIN with a combination of numbers, colours and shapes;, for example: 3, square, pink, flag. Each time that the user has to input their pin, the colours and symbols randomly change position on the TRI-PIN keypad, so you’re never pressing the same sequence of keys.” It sounds like a pretty clever idea although based on what we can see in the video above, chances are this might work better with a touchscreen display rather than physical keys, but who knows, perhaps someone could find a way to adapt it. In the meantime what do you guys think?

PINs In The Future Could Involve Shapes And Colors original content from Ubergizmo.

It wasn’t too long ago that Nest, the company behind the smart thermostat developed by former Apple employee, Tony Fadell, was acquired by Google for a whopping $3.2 billion. Safe to say many were surprised by this as given the design of the Nest thermostat and the fact that Fadell used to work for Apple that Nest would have been a logical acquisition for Apple, sort of like to bring Fadell back into the fold, and also to prevent their competitors, namely Google, from getting ahead. Oddly enough this was not the case. In fact it was even reported that Google was the only serious bidder for the company, which makes us wonder where was Apple in all of this.

In any case despite Apple’s silence on the matter, Fadell has come forward and stated that despite the acquisition by Google, he has no plans on pulling the Nest smart thermostat from Apple’s stores. In fact he states that the ball is pretty much in Apple’s court as to whether they want to continue their relationship with Nest, despite now being a Google-owned company. Speaking to Bloomberg, Fadell stated, “We want to make sure that we offer those things to them [Apple customers], and it’s for Apple to figure out whether or not they want to continue.” What do you guys think? Will Apple remain interested in carrying the Nest thermostat in their stores? After all it would almost be like Apple promoting Google’s products (by extension). We guess we will just have to wait and see, and if you stop seeing Nest thermostats in Apple’s stores, we guess we have our answer.

Tony Fadell Says It’s Up To Apple If They Want To Keep Selling Nest Products original content from Ubergizmo.

It used to be back in the day that companies out compete against one another simply based on the merits of their products/services, but it seems that thanks to patents being used a weapon, companies are suing each other left and right to prevent their rivals from getting an edge over them, or at least making things really difficult for them. Well the good news is that it looks like a legal battle between Samsung and Google will not be happening anytime soon as both companies have revealed that they have signed a long-term cross-licensing deal with one another that is expected to cover patents that have already been filed, and future patents, for the next 10 years.

The specifics of the deal were not shared with the public, apart from its announcement, although both companies did state that the deal was mutually beneficial. In fact Samsung seemed to take a pot shot at Apple, according to a statement made by Seungho Ahn, the head of Samsung’s Intellectual Property Center, where he was quoted as saying, ”Samsung and Google are showing the rest of the industry that there is more to gain from cooperating than engaging in unnecessary patent disputes.” Both Apple and Samsung are expected to meet up for talks come February, which if not successful, will see both companies back in the courtrooms shortly after.

Google And Samsung Sign Cross-Licensing Deal With Each Other For Next 10 Years original content from Ubergizmo.

You might have already heard about Target being the victim of a major security breach, one that compromised personal information of more than 70 million customers. The retailer was hit during the holiday shopping season, and it discovered that malware was installed on its point of sale registers, which lead to credit and debit card information being compromised as well. Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus also confirmed that it too had been the victim of a security breach. Security researchers claim that a few other major U.S. retailers have been targeted, but they have yet to be named. It seems that things aren’t going to get any easier for U.S. retailers, the FBI was warned them to prepare for more attacks involving the same malware that was used against Target.

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FBI Says U.S. Retailers Should Prepare For More Cyber Attacks original content from Ubergizmo.