Facebook To Buy Voice Translation Firm Mobile Technologies

FACEBOOK has agreed to buy Mobile Technologies, a firm specialising in voice translation software.

Founded in 2001, Mobile Technologies is best known for developing the Jibbigo mobile application for speech-to-speech language translation.

"I'm excited to announce that we've agreed to acquire Mobile Technologies, a company with an amazing team that's behind some of the world's leading speech recognition and machine translation technology," Facebook's Product Management Director Tom Stocky wrote in an online posting.

"Voice technology has become an increasingly important way for people to navigate mobile devices and the web, and this technology will help us evolve our products to match that evolution.

In a separate statement, the smaller firm said it was "excited to announce that Facebook has agreed to acquire Mobile Technologies and that once the deal has closed many of us will be joining the company at their headquarters in Menlo Park, California".

Neither company revealed the cost of the sale.

Despite having over one billion monthly users, Facebook has struggled to climb out of the wreckage of its disastrous stock market debut more than a year ago.

The social network has appeared to be on an upward trajectory, however, following an earnings report last month that showed a big jump in mobile advertising revenue and sent shares soaring more than 40 per cent.

Source:http://www.theaustralian.com.au

Review: Samsung Galaxy S4 Active Smartphone

 

What is your definition of an “active” phone? Is it a beautiful phone that can finally get sporty? Or is it a smartphone so rugged that beauty is barely a consideration?This is the question you’ll have to answer if you’re considering the Samsung Galaxy S4 Active smartphone this summer. On the one hand, Samsung’s first entry into the growing market of ruggedized, waterproof devices is easily the most elegant on the market, the kind of phone you won’t mind pulling out at a Friday night party. Overall, it’s actually a more appealing phone than the regular S4, although it’s not available on AT&T and is not compatible with Samsung’s S 4 smartcovers.On the other hand? Toughness isn’t this phone’s strong suit. It’s more day-at-the-swimming-pool device than hiking trip companion, a device that touts its ability in the water yet doesn’t have a warranty for water damage.Adjust your expectations accordingly. This phone isn’t really the awesome go-everywhere companion it’s billed to be; instead, it’s a sleek-looking smartphone that’s vastly more durable than the majority of the devices on the market.

RELATED: GALAXY S4 IS AN OPTIONS OVERLOAD VS. IPHONE 5The idea of the ruggedized, super-tough phone is one that more and more companies and users are beginning to embrace. From the iPhone to Sony’s Xperia Z to the HTC One to Samsung’s original S line, today’s smartphones lack true durability. They’re not built for a hike, and they’re definitely not built for a dive in the lake. That helped spawn Casio’s ultra-tough G’zOne line.Thing is, the average ruggedized phone has an exterior that only a construction worker could love. So here comes Samsung into the act, in time to make an impact on your 2013 summer, bringing all that Samsung software goodness and a waterproof, dust-proof chassis.If all sport smartphones looked like this, then we’d all own a sport smartphone. The S4 Active is as elegant as they come. The unit I reviewed came in an eye-catching electric blue, and it felt slightly heavier and sturdier than a regular S4. Four screws are bolted to the four back corners of the device; oddly, these are purely cosmetic, giving the phone a more rugged look but not making it any more durable.The other notable differences between the S 4 and the S 4 Active lie just below the touchscreen. Instead of touch-sensitive buttons, the S4 Active gets three physical buttons (menu, home and back). And below those, instead of an open micro-USB charging port, you get one with a rubber gasket cover sealing the port off from water. When (or if) you plan to take the S4 Active for a swim, you’ll want to make sure this port is sealed super-tight.
RELATED: SAMSUNG WORKING ON "SMART WATCH"Internally, this is largely the same phone as the regular S4. The camera gets a downgrade, from 13 megapixels to eight, but it still takes fantastic shots. Shooting with the S4 Active under water (a major selling point) is fantastic. It’s hard to know exactly how “real” the underwater shots are, but they definitely look good.The other “active” points of the phone, at least to me, dealt with how it handled a real workout. Could I take the Active for a run and not worry about it even the slightest bit? Could it handle the myriad bumps and drops that come with a road hike or even a tumble from a pull-up bar in the gym?Here, the Active performed adequately. The device didn’t collect any dings or dents despite my dropping it a few times. (Credit the slightly rubbery corners, I guess, or maybe I just didn’t drop it from as high as I should have.) This isn’t a super-tough phone by any means, but it takes more of a pounding than a Nokia Lumia 920 or even my trusty Samsung Galaxy Note 2.Unfortunately, the device doesn’t have a nice rubbery, grippy feel, so if you’re trying to take a picture from an odd angle from a hike, you won’t necessarily hold it comfortably with one hand to take the shot.
That’s community pool territory, not daring trip to the Great Lakes, and it’s a risk no matter what. The S4 Active warranty doesn’t cover water damage, so as with most phones, if it doesn’t work after getting wet, you’re pretty much out of luck. Use it at your own risk instead despite the massive investment.
In the end, I definitely appreciated the extra durability from the S4 Active, even if I’d hardly consider taking it on my next swim trip. The little things certainly help; I didn’t give it a second thought talking in the rain with the S4 Active, dropping it in a puddle (once intentionally, just for kicks) or even having one of those cumbersome phone-braced-against-shoulder conversations while doing dishes by the sink.
As smartphones go, that’s impressive durability and a nice little comfort factor.
Is it an “active” smartphone? Depends on how you define “activity.”
 

RELATED: REVIEW: SAMSUNG GALAXY S 4

The Active is solid under water as long as you know what you’re getting. Forget any dreams of diving with the sharks and chronicling it on your Active. The phone has an IP67 rating, so it’s cleared for use a meter deep and only for 30 minutes.

Source: http://www.nydailynews.com

Facebook Hires First Marketing Chief From Motorola Mobility

More than a year after going public, Facebook apparently believes it's time to hire the social network's first-ever chief marketing officer.

Gary Briggs, who was formerly the marketing chief at Motorola Mobility, has been hired by the social-networking giant to lead the company's marketing efforts, according to AdAge. Briggs replaced vice president of product marketing Eric Antonow, who has supervised Facebook's marketing efforts for the past three years.

Upon Google's completion of its $12.5 billion takeover of Motorola Mobility a year ago, Briggs was appointed Motorola's CMO after serving as vice president of consumer marketing at the Web giant.

Briggs said in a statement to AdAge that he was excited by the new challenge.

"Facebook isn't just a company. For more than a billion people, it's their connection to the friends and things they care about most," Briggs said. "Telling the story of such an important and still very young brand is an incredible opportunity, and I cannot wait to get started."

After six-year stints in consumer marketing at eBay and Pepsico, Briggs most recently served as an adviser to Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside and its new CMO, Bill Morgan.

Source: http://news.cnet.com

Facebook Shares Soar 40% In A week On Mobile Ad Revenue Increase

Wall Street likes Facebook again. Shares in the social network todayreturned to their flotation price briefly for the first time since its disastrous initial public offering last year.

Facebook's shares touched above the milestone $38-a-share float price on New York's Nasdaq exchange, before slipping down to $37.63 by the close. The shares have soared by more than 40% since last Wednesday, when Facebook reported a surge in mobile advertising revenue. The rapid share price increase values the company, founded by a 20-year-old Mark Zuckerberg in his Harvard dorm room less than a decade ago, at just under $92bn (£60bn) – about eight times the value of Marks & Spencer (founded 1884). Zuckerberg's paper fortune has risen by just under $5bn in a week to nearly $17bn, according to the Bloomberg billionaire’s index.

Now 29 – and known for his blue hoodies and desire to maintain a relatively simple life despite his vast wealth – Zuckerberg jumped from the 75th to 42nd-richest person in the world, leapfrogging Steve Ballmer of Microsoft and Michael Dell, founder of Dell, along the way. Bill Gates, 57, the Microsoft founder, remains the richest person in the world, with a net worth of $72bn. Carlos Slim, 73, the Mexican telecoms magnate, is $5.5bn behind Gates.

Facebook's shares have not been able to hold above the $38 float price since its 18 May 2012 debut, when its underwriters were forced to buy stock to stop it falling below the issue price. By the end of that month the shares had crashed by more than $10, wiping more than $4bn off the value of Zuckerberg's fortune in less than two weeks. By August, the shares had dropped a further $10, wiping out almost $50bn of the company's market value.

The recovery only really began in earnest last week when Facebook reported a much better than expected 53% year-on-year increase in revenue to $1.8bn in the three months to the end of June.

Wall Street was particularly impressed with the company recording a 51% increase in mobile users to 819m. Previously, analysts had openly mocked Zuckerberg's "mobile first" promise.

"We are investing in mobile, measurement and product innovation," Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer, said on a conference call with analysts. "The results we're reporting today demonstrate the early returns on these investments."

David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect, a history of the company, said: "Very few people saw the pace at which the entire activity of the planet's internet connectivity was going to move toward mobile. It's clearly under way now."

"They've really done a 180-degree shift toward mobile, even if it was somewhat belatedly," he told Bloomberg.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com

Apple Tries to Patch Up iPhone Charge Port Security Flaw Found by Researchers

Some Apple customers were annoyed when the company changed the shape of the charging port for the iPhone 5. Now, another grievance can be attributed to Apple's charging port, but this time it's not just an inconvenience. It's a security flaw.

Apple says its forthcoming operating system will address the flaw, but the researcher who discovered it questions whether Apple's approach so far truly fixes the problem.

Billy Lau, a research scientist at Georgia Institute of Technology, gave apresentation at the Black Hat USA conference that demonstrated how to hack iPhones and iPads. He and two of his colleagues, Yeongjin Jang and Chengyu Song, hid a miniscule computer in a charger. The computer was able to get access into the devices and install its own apps.

Normally, Apple users peruse the App Store to pick and choose the apps that they want. However, there are very few safeguards set up to prevent a malicious app from being installed without the user's knowledge.

"There's another channel that's normally accessed by iOS developers in order to test their app before it hits the market," Lau told ABC News.

When developers connect a device to the computer to test their particular app, the computer reads the device's Unique Identifier, or UDID. After reading the UDID, the device will generate what's known as a provisional profile.

"Then, they can install any of their own custom-made apps," Lau said.

While the UDID isn't public information, it can be easily accessed once a device is plugged into a computer.

"The computer reads the UDID from the device instantaneously," said Lau.

A hacker with less-than-noble intentions can hide a computer in a charging device or a bigger object, like a music docking station. Once connected, it can generate its own provisional profile and gain access to both iPhones and iPads.

SIM Hack Can Expose Cell Phones to Crooks

A hacker also isn't limited to a single device.

"There are Apple lounges with USB charging stations," said Lau. "It's a prime target that the [hacker] can use to reach many devices quickly."

If a charging station has been tampered with, then the hacker can gain access to many phones very quickly.

Lau and his colleagues notified Apple about the security flaw shortly after their presentation was approved for Black Hat back in May. Apple invited them to test their hack on a beta version of iOS7, the newest version of the operating system that is yet to be released.

"The device will now ask if you want to trust the computer you plug it into," said Lau.

However, Lau added that users might not know that the computer or peripheral they plugged into is an untrustworthy computer and can still be vulnerable to the hack.

"Fixes for the charger pairing vulnerability have been addressed in the latest beta of iOS7," Tom Neumayer, a spokesman for Apple, told ABC News. "We would like to thank the researchers for their valuable input."

Apple'sproactive effort to fix the bug surprised Lau.

"Most of the time, Apple just seems to not respond or pretend that there is no problem," he said. "We demonstrated the weakness and it seems that, this time, they are really trying to do something."

The hack and Apple's response was first reported by Reuters.

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/

iOS 7 Beta Suggest Non-Retaina A6-Powered iPad Mini in Development

According to the iOS 7 beta, Apple is testing a new iPad mini model that includes an A6 chip -- the same as the current iPhone 5 -- and a non-retina display, reports 9to5Mac.

The information was sent to the site by developer Nick Frey, who found the details inside a file that lists all the iOS devices that support iOS7. The A6 processor would be a logical upgrade for the iPad mini, advancing its main processing chip to the next generation.

According to the provided information, Apple is considering three new iPad mini models: iPad “2,8,” iPad “2,9,” and iPad “2,10.” The respective code names for the devices are J75, J76, and J77. This points to one WiFi-only model and two cellular-compatible models (just like the current iPad minis).

[…]

As for what these new iPad minis will feature, the references state that the devices include the “s5l8950x” processor. This is the same A6 system-on-a-chip inside of Apple’s iPhone 5, and this would offer significant speed improvements for the iPad mini compared to the current A5-based model.

Current iPad mini models are nicknamed '2,5'; '2,6'; and '2,7'. 9to5Mac also notes that the models don't include references to '@2x' code that relates to Retina-display supported artwork -- that code is included in the iPhone 5 and the fourth-generation iPad, leading the site to conclude that the new mini will not include a Retina display.

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has vacillated in recent months over Apple's plans for the iPad mini, most recently saying that a Retina-equipped device would launch sometime in March or April of 2014, with Apple not planning to upgrade the device at all until that time.

It's possible that this non-retina iPad mini is merely a device in testing, but while Kuo has a strong track record, it's always possible that Apple could change product release plans at the last minute.

Source: http://www.macrumors.com

Apple Update To Tackle Charger Hack Attack

Apple plans to issue a software update to help its products avoid falling victim to booby-trapped chargers.

The update has been prepared in response to research that created malicious chargers that could upload code onto devices plugged into them.

The work by computer scientists at Georgia Tech in the US can compromise iOS devices in about 60 seconds.

Apple's pending update warns users to be sure they are using a trusted charging point when they plug in.

The custom built chargers include a small computer alongside the electronic components that pipe power into an Apple iOS device.

The tiny computer interrogates an iPhone or tablet and copies a unique ID number that identifies that phone.

This is then used on an Apple website to take advantage of an uploading tool usually used by developers to test their software on an iOS gadget.

Instead of uploading a program in development, the trio of researchers, Billy Lau, Yeongjin Jang, and Chengyu Song, managed to upload an application that stole data.

The malicious chargers and their associated data-stealing application were demonstrated at the Black Hat hacker conference currently under way in Las Vegas.

In the demo, the trio showed off a fake Facebook app that could grab screenshots of passwords and make calls on behalf of an attacker.

The limited nature of the attack, which requires phones to be unlocked and for attackers to be a registered developer with Apple, were noted by tech news site Ars Technica.

The researchers from Georgia Tech's Information Security Center gave some details about their attack in June and this prompted Apple to prepare an update for devices running version seven of its iOS operating system. The update is currently part of the beta release for iOS 7. The final version of iOS7 will be released in the Autumn.

The update asks users if they are sure they can trust the device they are using to charge their phone or tablet.

Untrusted devices get no access to the internals of an iOS gadget.

Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk