Hasta La Gadget!

This week a chat between Google’s own Eric Schmidt and the head of the organization known as WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, has been revealed in full. This conversation has been typed out in transcript form and revealed to the public by none other than WikiLeaks itself, releasing this document just ahead of the publication of the book The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future. This is significant due to the book’s co-author, Jared Cohen, also apparently being present at the meeting with Assange.

The transcript at hand – which you can access [here] – is said to be a complete write-up of a five-hour chat between Schmidt, Assange, Cohen, and Lisa Shields. Cohen is otherwise known as a former Secretary of State advisor to Hillary Clinton. Lisa Shields hails from the Council on Foreign Relations.

At the time of the recording from which the transcript was transcribed, Assange was under house arrest in the UK. The meeting took place in a single day, the 23rd of June, 2011, and according to WikiLeaks, it was Schmidt and Cohen that requested the meeting “to discuss ideas for” their book.

“To be used in a book by Eric Schmidt, due to be published by Knopf in October 2012. I have been given a guarantee that I will see the transcript and will be able to adjust it for accuracy and clarity.” – Assange

One of the first subjects that has turned up as telling – and will almost certainly appear in the forthcoming book – is Schmidt and Assange’s words exchanged on a government’s ability to turn off the internet. Using mobile phones, they note, things have changed drastically.

ES: When we were sort of chatting initially we talked about my idea that powering, mobile phones being powered, is sort of changing society. A rough summary of your answer for everybody else is that people are very much the same and something big has to change their behaviour, and this might be one of them, and you said, you were very interested in someone building phone to phone encryption.

Can you talk a little bit about, roughly, the architecture where you would have a broad open network and you have person to person encryption. What does that mean technically, how would it work, why is it important. That kind of stuff. I mean, I think people don’t understand any of this area in my view.

JA: When we were dealing with Egypt we saw the Mubarak government cut off the internet and we saw only one – there was one ISP that quite few of us were involved in trying to keep its connections open, it had maybe 6% of the market. Eventually they cut.. eventually the Mubarak government also cut off the mobile phone system. And why is it that that can be done?

People with mobile phones have a device that can communicate in a radio spectrum. In a city there is a high density… there is always, if you like, a path between one person and another person. That is there is always a continuous path of mobile phones, each one can in theory hear the radio of the other.

This conversation continues for over 25000 words – you’ll want to take a deep dive as we continue investigating throughout the day (and through the future, too). If you’re feeling really intrepid, you may want to download the page just incase it’s taken down or redacted in any way in the near future as well.

For this particular situation we’d love for you, the reader, to engage with us in taking a look at this WikiLeaks document. In our Facebook Chat today we’ll be discussing this document in-depth. Please feel free to join in!

Eric Schmidt WikiLeaks meeting turns up details on internet shut-down is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

After releasing Siri on the iPhone 4S back in 2011, Apple has finally disclosed how long it keeps all of those commands and hankering questions you have for Siri. The Cupertino-based company says that it keeps all Siri data for two years, but they state that all of the data from Siri that the company collects is completely anonymized.

Wired details the process of which Apple uses to anonymize all Siri data. Essentially, all Siri commands get sent to an Apple data farm, where Apple generates a random number that represents the user and associates the Siri commands with that random number. After six months, your random number is deleted, but the Siri data remains intact until 18 more months have passed, where the data will then get deleted.

Obviously, Siri isn’t two years quite yet, so all the data ever transmitted through Siri is still being stored, but come later this fall, Apple will begin deleting older Siri data. However, privacy advocates still aren’t happy, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) being one of them. They say that Apple’s privacy policy with Siri is still rather vague.

The ACLU says that “what you say to Siri could reveal sensitive things about you, your family, or business,” and they warn Siri-wielding folks that “Siri works for Apple, so make a note to yourself to really think before you speak.” In a day and age where privacy is a big issue, some users can still easily overlook how much data they’re giving away.

[via Wired]

Apple keeps anonymized Siri data for two years is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Blackstone Group LP has announced that it has officially backed away from any attempts to purchase Dell Inc. Blackstone had stepped up with an attempt to top a leveraged buyout attempt by Dell Inc. founder Michael Dell and a consortium of other companies that were attempting to take Dell Inc. private. Previously, Michael Dell had asked for guarantees that he could remain as CEO before he would consider the buyout offer from Blackstone.

Blackstone has now changed its mind and announced that it is ending its pursuit of purchasing Dell. The Wall Street Journal reports that Blackstone has issued a letter to the special board committee that it had been working with during the negotiations notifying them of their discontinued interest in the purchase. Reports indicate that Blackstone cited declining personal computer sales across the industry is a factor in its decision.

Other factors that Blackstone cited included concerns about Dell’s declining operating income, according to a source claiming to be familiar with negotiations. No official comments offered by Dell or Blackstone. Reports indicate that Blackstone had a team at Dell HQ in Texas working on due diligence for the potential purchase. That due diligence raised doubts for Blackstone about the future of the Dell PC business according to people familiar with the situation.

With Blackstone out of the picture, it leaves Michael Dell and his backers as well as investor Carl Icahn in the running to purchase the company. The potential offers on the table from Blackstone and Icahn were viewed by some members of the special Dell board committee as superior to the offering by company founder Michael Dell and Silver Lake. Whether or not an official offer is made by Icahn remains to be seen.

[via Wall Street Journal]

Blackstone steps away from possible Dell buyout is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Once again, YouTube had risen as victor against Viacom in a copyright lawsuit that has been limping along for quite some time now. U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton sided with the video hosting service, stating that YouTube is protected by the DMCA, and that Viacom’s arguments against it demonstrated an anachronistic slant on the law.

This is the second time Judge Stanton has sided with YouTube, having also done so a couple years after the lawsuit surfaced in 2007. Viacom’s argument was that YouTube’s business was formed on the backs of copyrighted content, having failed to implement a system for preventing such materials. It was ruled that YouTube was in the safe harbor provision of the DMCA.

Despite this, appeals judges ultimately decided to bring the lawsuit back, saying that the quantity of copyrighted content featured on the website in that time period was in the majority, and that YouTube was aware of it. The problem it noted, however, was that Viacom must show that the video service was aware of individual instances of infrigement, something Judge Stanton says it has acknowledged that it cannot do.

Viacom claimed that YouTube purposely ignored copyright infringing content, and that it could have implemented a system to filter it but chose not to. In response, Judge Stanton stated that YouTube, under the DMCA, is not required to search for the infringing content, and that Viacom failed to demonstrate that YouTube engaged in “willful blindness.” Regarding the issue of whether it intentionally avoided limiting the content, the judge ruled that it doesn’t matter, the safe harbor provision still applies.

[via Hollywood Reporter]

Viacom loses copyright lawsuit against YouTube is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Honda has announced plans to recall 204,500 of its CR-V, Odyssey, and Acura RDX vehicles from 2012 and 2013 due to an issue with the braking system. When temperatures drop below freezing, a problem with one component could allow the driver to shift without pressing the brake first, something that hasn’t caused any issues, instead being discovered in an internal investigation.

The numbers break down to 59,000 2012 and 2013 Honda Odyssey minivans, 128,000 2012 and 2013 Honda CR-V SUVs, and 17,500 2013 Acura RDX vehicles. Those with an affected vehicle will have a component in the brake shift interlock system replaced with one that isn’t prone to failure in sub-freezing temperatures. According to Honda, no customers have complained or experiened any injuries from the problem.

Snail-mail notifications will go out to those with one of the affected vehicles some time in the middle of May. Once the notifications begin rolling out, customers will also be able to check if they have one of the models by visiting the respective Honda and Acura “Recalls” website (recalls.honda.com and recalls.acura.com) or by calling the customer hotline and pressing “4″.

This follows a recent recall over faulty airbags by the manufacturer, with the airbags coming from Takata Corporation. The airbags were made from 2000 to 2002, and concerned a problem with the inflators that could cause abnormal inflation when deployed. Toyota and Nissan were also forced to issue recalls over the same airbag problems.

[via Honda (PDF)]

Honda recalls 204,500 vehicles over potential shifting problem is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.