Facebook Bows to Campaign Groups over 'Hate Speech'

Facebook has said it will review how it deals with "controversial, harmful and hateful" content after admitting current measures are not effective.

In a blog post, the social network said: "We need to do better - and we will."

The admission follows sustained pressure from campaign groups, advertisers and the media.

An open letter from several feminist groups urged Facebook to ban pages that they said promoted violence.

The company said it would begin rolling out changes immediately after it became "clear that our systems to identify and remove hate speech have failed to work as effectively as we would like".

Marne Levine, Facebook's vice president of Global Public Policy, added: "In some cases, content is not being removed as quickly as we want.

"In other cases, content that should be removed has not been or has been evaluated using outdated criteria.

"We have been working over the past several months to improve our systems to respond to reports of violations, but the guidelines used by these systems have failed to capture all the content that violates our standards."

'Doing better'

Facebook has been involved in a number of recent rows over content.

At the beginning of May, it reversed a decision not to remove a video which showed a man being beheaded as it did not break the social network's policy.

Following this most recent outcry, Ms Levine put forward several changes the social network would be making.

She said Facebook would consult lawyers and interest groups to upgrade its guidelines on removing hate speech.

Training of staff will be stepped up, again by working with interest groups to ensure coaching is appropriate.

Facebook also pledged to work to make sure the posters of such material were made to "stand behind the content they create" so that other users could hold them accountable.

Commenting on Ms Levine's blog post, many Facebook users expressed annoyance at the length of time it had taken for the issues to be addressed.

"It took incredible public pressure for you to look at it... you should have had the guts and morals to do it on your own!", wrote one user.

Nissan boycott

Facebook's response comes off the back of a large-scale online campaign from a number of prominent women's rights groups.

They included the Everyday Sexism Project, a site that uses social media to highlight what it sees as casual sexism in the media and other arenas.

In addition to their letter to the social network, the groups also called on advertisers to boycott the site, noting that their advertising appeared alongside user-created pages showing images of violence towards women that were "shared, boasted and joked about".

One petition calling for action closed with 225,049 signatures.

The groups called on Facebook to take three specific actions. They were to:

• "Recognize speech that trivializes or glorifies violence against girls and women as hate speech and make a commitment that you will not tolerate this content.
• "Effectively train moderators to recognize and remove gender-based hate speech.
• "Effectively train moderators to understand how online harassment differently affects women and men, in part due to the real-world pandemic of violence against women."
• According to campaigners Women, Action & the Media, one high-profile advertiser, Nissan, suspended its advertising on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the company told the BBC that following Facebook's assurances, it had begun advertising on the platform again.

UK building society Nationwide also took action to remove its promotions: "We welcome the initial commitments made by Facebook yesterday to continue to improve their responses to violations of standards.

"As a responsible and trusted consumer brand, we do feel that sites like Facebook should have stringent processes and guidelines in place to ensure that brands are able to protect themselves from appearing alongside inappropriate content."

Others brands such as Dove said they were working "aggressively" with Facebook to attempt to solve the problem.

3-D Printers Are Saving Lives and Serving Pizzas

3D Printer

The marvels of 3-D printing are continuing to make headlines this month.

Biomedical engineers at the University of Michigan have revealed how they used 3-D printing technology to fashion a tiny, custom-made implant that helped save the life of a newborn baby boy.

And the Texas-based engineering firm Systems and Materials Research Corporation has just received a $125,000 grant from NASA to develop a printer that can fabricate pizzas for astronauts to eat in space—not unlike the food "replicator" in Star Trek.

Saving Kaiba

Six-week-old Kaiba Gionfriddo was born with a condition that caused the airways in one of his lungs to collapse regularly; the infant had to be resuscitated on a daily basis. Working with his doctors, researchers used a CT scan of his airways to design a sort of tracheal "splint" that would be able to support the lining of his bronchial tube for two or three years until his body grows stronger and he no longer requires the artificial assistance.

Using a sophisticated 3-D printer, and the CT scan as their blueprint, the team printed up a flexible tube out of biopolymer that was perfectly sized to Kaiba's tiny air passages. They implanted it in February 2012. Sixteen months later Kaiba and his parents are breathing easy, with no more emergency resuscitations or brushes with death.

Heavenly Pizza

Down in Texas plans are afoot to make pizzas for NASA that will be literally out of this world. The idea is to be able to create nutritious meals on long interplanetary missions.

"The current food system is not adequate in nutrition or acceptability through the five-year shelf life required for a mission to Mars," said NASA spokesperson Dave Steitz. At present, astronauts dine on pre-packaged meals not unlike the meals-ready-to-eat (MREs) issued to the military. MREs require a lot of processing and over time lose their nutritional value.

Enter the 3-D food printer. By following digital recipes and using easily stored bulk ingredients—powdered carbohydrates, powdered proteins, and oils—deep-space travelers will be able to print out hot, fresh onboard meals. In theory anyway, these foods will not only be wholesome and tasty, but also tailored to meet the precise nutritional needs and personal tastes of each extraterrestrial diner.

Pizza won't be the only item on the printed menu. The humble pizza is being used as a starting point because its layered structure makes it an ideal candidate for 3-D food-printing technology, which "prints" objects by depositing one microscopically thin layer at a time—and in the case of pizzas, baking them as they go.

Printing Dinner

Creating the meals will require a blend of printing technologies: 3-D printing to build up the bulk of the meal, and inkjet printing to add vitamins, flavors, and aromas. The end results might not win any Michelin stars, but they should be satisfying enough to keep capsule-bound astronauts well-fed on a multiyear mission to Mars.

Printing meals from generic bulk-stored ingredients such as powdered carbohydrates and proteins has implications far beyond the confines of a Mars-bound space capsule, according to the company behind the proposal, and could be used to help solve potential food crises as the planet's population continues to grow. The 3-D printing process reduces waste to nearly zero, and underutilized foods such as insects and algae can be dried and powdered and used to supply some of the ingredients.

These latest innovations and breakthroughs brighten the spotlight that has been thrown on the fast-evolving 3-D printing industry lately, starting with the headline-grabbing announcement that a University of Texas law student had printed a functioning .38-caliber handgun out of $60 worth of plastic.

Japan Secrets Leaked : Read Inside :

Japans Secret 

Balloon bombs aimed to be the silent assassins of World War II. Hitching a ride on a jet stream, these weapons from Japan could float soundlessly across the Pacific Ocean to their marks in North America.

Still largely unknown, these armaments were a byproduct of an atmospheric experiment by the Axis power. In the 1940s, the Japanese were mapping out air currents by launching balloons attached with measuring instruments from the western side of Japan and picking them up on the eastern side.

The researchers noticed that a strong air current traveled across the Pacific at about 30,000 feet.

A Japanese balloon bomb during World War II. Photograph courtesy U.S. Air Force

Using that knowledge, in 1944 the Japanese military made what many experts consider the first intercontinental weapon system: explosive devices attached to paper balloons that were buoyed across the ocean by a jet stream.

The Pattern of Attack

Experts estimate it took between 30 and 60 hours for a balloon bomb to reach North America's West Coast.

Atmospheric uncertainty made for an uncontrolled attack. "An awful lot of this was just 'put them up there and see what happens,' " said Dave Tewksbury, a member of the geosciences department at Hamilton College, New York. But the lack of a governed outcome was tempered by the fact that no Japanese troops were at risk.

Locating the Source

When the balloons made landfall, there were no obvious clues as to where they originated. But forensic geology, then in its infancy, was able to pinpoint Japan as the point of launch. When Col. Sigmund Poole, head of the U.S. Geological Survey military geology unit at the time, was given sand from one of the balloon's ballast bags, he is alleged to have asked, "Where'd the damn sand come from?"

His team of geologists knew it wasn't a type of sand found in North America or Hawaii. "Japan was a logical guess," said Tewksbury. The sand was unique enough to narrow the source down to two areas on the island of Honshu. "Most likely it had been coming from a small chunk of beach east of Tokyo," he added.

A Single Success

The first balloon was launched on November 3, 1944. Between then and April 1945, experts estimate about 1,000 of them reached North America; 284 are documented as sighted or found, many as fragments (see map). Records uncovered in Japan after the war indicate that about 9,000 were launched.

The Japanese government withdrew funding for the program around the same time that Allied forces blew up Japanese hydrogen plants, making the commodity needed to fill the balloons scarcer than ever. Plus it was unclear whether the weapons were working; security was so good on the U.S. side that news of the balloon bombs' arrival never got back to Japan.

The downside to such secrecy was that American citizens didn't know what these weapons were. As a result, a single one achieved its goal.

On May 5, 1945, five children and local pastor Archie Mitchell's pregnant wife Elsie were killed as they played with the large paper balloon they'd spotted during a Sunday outing in the woods near Bly, Oregon—the only enemy-inflicted casualties on the U.S. mainland in the whole of World War II.

How Stars Die : Surprising News : Read Inside

Scientists studied the sodium content of stars in the cluster known as NGC 6752.

The way that stars spend their last years is largely shaped by their sodium "diet," according to a surprising new study published on Wednesday.

The study could upend current theories about how some stars that are similar to our sun die and become the basic building blocks for the next generation of stars and planets.

According to existing stellar evolution models, sunlike stars—those that are similar in size and chemical composition to our sun—swell to become so-called red giants in their final stage of life, before losing their atmospheres in a spectacular bubble of gas and dust.

This fate awaits our own sun in 4 to 5 billion years, scientists say.

The final period in a sunlike star's life, when stars make their greatest contribution to the universe, is known as the asymptotic giant branch (AGB).

"They puff off all their outer layers of gas and dust, enriching and polluting the surrounding space," said Simon Campbell, an astronomer at Monash University in Australia and the co-author of the new study published in the journal Nature.

"This gas and dust gets recycled and goes into the formation of the next generation of stars, planets—and possibly even life."

But now astronomers have found that not all sunlike stars follow the same rules when it comes to the end of their life cycles, and that some can skip the AGB phase altogether.

Chemical Fingerprints

Campbell and his team studied a giant ball of stars known as NGC 6752, one of the sky's brightest globular clusters. The collection of about one million stars sits 13,000 light-years from Earth in the southern constellation Pavo.

Globular clusters are considered the perfect cosmic laboratories for studying stars and testing stellar computer models because they have so many stars, in all phases of life.

Campbell's team used the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope in the Atacama Desert of Chile. The giant telescope was equipped with a spectrograph—a prism used to break starlight into its colors—which allowed the researchers to obtain the chemical fingerprints of 130 cluster stars at once.

The team immediately noticed that the cluster is home to both a first generation of stars, at least 10 billion years old, and a second generation that is billions of years younger—and that the two groups appeared to contain different amounts of sodium.

"It's a bit like using sodium as a chemical 'tag' to follow each population of stars," said Campbell.

By tracking the sodium levels, the researchers were able to identify which stars would undergo the AGB phase at the end of their lives.

"We suspected sodium might be a good 'tracer' because it cannot be altered by the stars themselves because they are too low mass, and not hot enough to create or burn sodium," Campbell said.

His team quickly realized that some members of the cluster didn't appear to follow accepted theories when it came to undergoing the final burn stages, or AGB, when they were dying. Some skipped this final burst of nuclear burning entirely.

All the AGB stars in the study were first-generation stars with low levels of sodium, while none of the higher-sodium second-generation stars had become AGB stars.

It turns out that up to 70 percent of the stars in the NGC 6752 cluster were not undergoing the final "nuclear burning and mass-loss phase so indicative of sunlike stars," said Campbell.

Stellar Mystery

Exactly why there are two broad groups of stars with starkly different sodium levels in globular clusters is still unknown, Campbell said, and is a hot topic in stellar research.

How the newfound breed of sodium-rich, sunlike stars ultimately die is still something of a mystery. Campbell suspects they may directly evolve into small-Earth-size white dwarf stars that gradually cool over many billions of years.

But he said that one thing's for sure: Existing computer models of how sunlike stars die will need to be adjusted.

The wild activity of our magnificent SUN

The Sun 

The solar maximum is nearly in full swing, and the solar system has been in a hullabaloo from the sun's activity.

As we've mentioned before, the solar maximum will have a few effects here on earth. You're probably most likely to notice interruptions to radio and navigation devices (so if you get lost, you can quite rightly tell people that it's the fault of a disaster). Generally, though, the effects are quite benign and, if you're lucky, you'll get to catch the most visually amazing phenomenon of which our sky is capable.

Meanwhile, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has been compiling some amazing images of solar activity. If you want to get a better idea of what's going on with the old treacle bun, have a click through the gallery below to see what a solar maximum actually entails.

Google said to deploy Wi-Fi blimps in Africa and Asia

High altitude platform control system.

The Web giant is reportedly creating airborne wireless networks to bring Internet access to some of the world's hard-to-reach regions.

How can the Internet be brought to areas that have no infrastructure for high-speed wireless? Beam the Wi-Fi networks down from flying objects, of course.

Google is reportedly working on creating wireless networks for more remote parts of the world, such as countries in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, with sky-bound balloons and blimps, according to Wired.

Dubbed "high-altitude platforms," these mechanisms will reportedly be able to connect roughly a billion more people to the Internet worldwide, according to Wired. The blimps signals are said to be able to reach people in areas that are hundreds of square miles.

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Google is going into the cellular business in Africa and Asia in an effort to connect more people to the Internet. Citing anonymous sources, the news source reported that the networks would be available outside of big cities, where service is spotty or not available.

Besides the Wi-Fi blimps, Google is reportedly also considering a satellite-based wireless system, along with testing other kinds of wireless frequencies, according to the Wall Street Journal. "There's not going to be one technology that will be the silver bullet," an anonymous source told the Journal.

It appears that Google has been working on high-altitude platforms for quite some time. In 2000, the company filed a patent application for a "High altitude platform control system," which involved creating an "aerospace vehicle" that could "improve the reliability of a communications system."

Also, Google isn't the only company that has been working on creating communication networks via blimps and balloons. Lockheed Martin and GlobeTel Communications have also been working on such inventions. And, the company Space Data already operates a network of high-altitude, balloon-borne transceivers known as SkySite Platforms, which serve as wireless towers.

Next Step, Superwoman: Amputee Fit With Bionic Ankles

Amputee Fit With Bionic Ankles

Lynn Budde might feel a step closer to Superwoman. Last week the 50-year-old Kentucky resident, who lost her limbs, nose, and upper lip to Toxic Shock Syndrome (TSS) in 2009, was the first female bi-lateral amputee to be fit with bionic ankles.

Running on a lithium polymer battery that needs to be recharged daily, the ankles are adjustable via an Android smartphone app. In Budde’s case, these new ankles allow her to walk out of her house, which sits on a 45-degree incline, and around the block with her husband.

“Two years ago, I never thought I would walk again,” says Budde.  “Today, I have two new ankles that as soon as I put them on, I felt like I had my legs back. I want to make sure all those suffering from limb loss know that there are options out there that will help you regain normalcy in your life.”

The revolutionary BiOM ankles, which use robotics to replicate muscles and tendons, normalize metabolic efficiency and walking for lower-limb amputees. That means users can walk with a natural gait and at the same speed as a person with intact biological limbs. Additionally, by using robotic muscle power to toe-off, the BiOM absorbs impact and reduces unnatural forces on the body, reducing back, joint, and limb aches.

The system works well. Its inventor, Dr. Hugh Herr, the world-renowned MIT-based innovator and founder of prosthetic company iWalk, has had plenty of opportunity to test it. Herr lost his own legs in a mountain climbing accident at age 17 and wears BiOMs on both his legs for climbing. In addition to the bionic ankles, Herr developed a computer-controlled knee that was named one of Time magazine’s Top Ten Inventions in 2004. He holds (or co-holds) more than a dozen patents related to assistive devices.

“What we plan to do and will do is systematically build body parts from the ground up, literally,” Herr said in a recent CNN interview. “So we’re starting with ankles. Then the next act of iWalk is knees. And after that will be hips. And we’ll just rebuild the human from the ground up.”

Samsung to unveil new Galaxy on June 20

Credit : Samsung

Just a few months after unveiling its Galaxy S4 smartphone, Samsung is getting ready to unveil new mobile devices.

The South Korean electronics giant announced Monday that it will hold a press event in London on June 20 that will presumably highlight additions to its Galaxy and Ativ lineups. The terse announcement includes close-up images of three devices, suggesting that at least three new gadgets will be unveiled at next month's event.Ativ -- Vita spelled backward -- previously applied largely to just the Ativ Smart PC and Smart PC Pro, both Windows 8 tablets, but was recently expanded to include Windows PCs. The company has also applied the brand to the Ativ S Windows Phone, which was released to lackluster fanfare, as well as planned but canceled the Ativ Tab, a Windows RT slate.

The event, which will be livestreamed on Samsung's mobile YouTube page, will come a week before Microsoft's Build developer conference and 10 days after Apple kicks off its Worldwide Developers conference.

Scammer who stole Financial info Arrested by C.I.B

An alleged scammer who is responsible for stealing personal data of more than 10,000k people through a spam mail pretending to be from the Bureau of National Health Insurance has been arrested in China

Surnamed Pan, tricks victims into download and open the attachment that contained a malicious software allowing him to steal the personal data from the affected computers.

According to China Post report, he used few techniques to avoid the antivirus detection and tested his malware numerous time before launching the real attack.

Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said he had stolen "vast amounts of classified financial information from location companies".  He then used those details for accessing the online banking accounts and committed credit card fraud.

Android Trojan New Virus and Affects

Android Trojan 

Then New Android Trojan virus makes them mobile insure even it breaks the two step verification method.

Two-Step authentication feature become insecure system when your android device got infected with a new malware which is capable of intercepting your messages and forwarding them to cybercriminals.

The Trojan, discovered by the Russian antivirus company Dr.Web , spreads as a security certificate that tricks users into thinking it must be installed onto their device.

Once installed, the malware does nothing other than displaying a message stating "Certificate installed successfully and your device is protected now."

But in background, the malware collects your phone information including Device's serial number, IMEI, model, carrier , phone number, OS.  Once the data has been gleaned, it attempts to send the info to the remote server.

After successfully sending the info, the malware awaits instructions from its master.  The cybercriminal behind the malware can now send instructions and control the malware to do the following : intercept and forward sms from specified numbers, send ussd message, show message and more.

This malware makes the Two-step authentication feature insecure because it can read the message sent to your mobile. It means the trojan can get the temporary password sent from Bank or any other sites using the 2-step authentication feature.

Start Your Windows 8 Via Microsoft Mouse

Microsoft Mouse for Windows 8

The freshly unveiled Sculpt Comfort mouse has a blue, touch-sensitive button on its flank that bears the familiar Windows 8 logo.

Using your thumb, you'll be swiping around on this button to perform various Windows-themed tasks. Swiping up on the strip cycles through open apps, while swiping down shows you all the programs you have opened in a zoomed-out view.

You can press the button too, catapulting you back to the colourful, tile-centric Windows Start Screen.

If the Sculpt Comfort mouse is more luxurious than you feel your hands deserve, Microsoft is also flogging a cheaper option, dubbed the Sculpt Mobile mouse. This doesn't have the same touch-sensitive features, but still features a bespoke Windows button, nestled right underneath the scroll wheel.

The Sculpt Comfort mouse comes out in June for $40 (roughly £26.50), while the Mobile Mouse hits shelves in May for $30 (about £20). I've contacted Microsoft to check on a UK release date, but I'd be surprised if we didn't see this tiny tech treats worming their way into British shops.

Microsoft's Start button used to be the epicentre of the Windows world, but the software giant removed it in Windows 8, which launched last year. Rumours suggest that Ballmer and pals are primed to backtrack on that move though, and will reintroduce the convenient launcher in an update.

If you're struggling with Windows 8 and wish it looked a bit more familiar, check out our guide on making Windows 8 look like Windows 7.

Galaxy's Ring of Fire by NASA

Galaxy's Ring of Fire

How many rings do you see in this new image of the galaxy Messier 94, also known as NGC 4736? While at first glance one might see a number of them, astronomers believe there is just one. This image was captured in infrared light by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Johnny Cash may have preferred this galaxy's burning ring of fire to the one he sang about falling into in his popular song. The "starburst ring" seen at center in red and yellow hues is not the product of love, as in the song, but is instead a frenetic region of star formation.

The galaxy, a spiral beauty called Messier 94, is located about 17 million light-years away. In this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, infrared light is represented in different colors, with blue having the shortest wavelengths and red, the longest.

Starburst rings like this can often be triggered by gravitational encounters with other galaxies but, in this case, may have instead been caused by the galaxy's oval shape. Gas in the ring is being converted into hot, young stars, which then warm the dust, causing it to glow with infrared light.

The outer, faint blue ring around the galaxy might be an optical illusion. Astronomers think that two separate spiral arms appear as a single unbroken ring when viewed from our position in space.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Data are archived at the Infrared Science Archive housed at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Facebook users share 1 billion stories through outside apps

Facebook

The social network showcases its latest purchase -- a developer platform -- to remind developers that it values outside apps.

Facebook highlighted its developer platform on Thursday, throwing out some big numbers around how third-party apps benefit from connecting to users through the social network.

The social network opened up its platform to independent developers six years ago Friday, Director of Product Manager Doug Purdy told journalists today at a press conference at Facebook's headquarters here. Attracting more developers means more apps for Facebook users.

More than 550 million people use third-party apps through Facebook, and those users share 1 billion stories a day, Purdy said.

He didn't forgot to spotlight mobile numbers as he walked through the history of Facebook's platform. The social network began its huge push for developing for mobile last year, and currently, Facebook is integrated with 80 percent of iOS apps and 70 percent of Android apps.In addition to emphasizing the importance of gaming on Facebook (a quarter of Facebook's users play games through the network), Purdy talked about why the company recently acquired development startup Parse. Parse, which will continue to run its existing platform, allows developers to easily build apps for one operating system, like iOS, and then quickly and easily move it to another, like Android. This means more apps across a variety of devices.

"We live in a world of heterogeneous devices, and what we're trying to do is create a platform where third-party developers can create an experience that is focused on people," Purdy said, "not focused on devices, but focused on people."

Samsung's Mobile Company Planning for 5G

Samsung 5G

While many mobile phone users are still making calls, sending texts, and surfing the web over a 3G network and have yet to upgrade to a 4G handset, South Korean mobile phone maker Samsung says it has successfully developed the world's first adaptive array transceiver technology operating in the millimeter-wave Ka bands for communications -- a.k.a. the basis for so-called 5G.

That doesn't mean 3G users should expect to skip 4G altogether. By most estimates 5G won't arrive until at least 2020 at the earliest. "That is the real important point here," says Jeffrey S. Silva, senior policy director for telecommunications, media, and technology at Medley Global Advisors. "There is a whole kind of technological ecosystem that goes into 5G. There are standards that need to be worked out, which is very procedural. This can be very political and even controversial as there is a lot of money at stake."

Given that fact, it isn't surprising that Samsung announced it was working on 5G technologies, especially as the company has widely been seen as more of a follower than leader in backbone technology, even as it has moved to the forefront of mobile handset development. "The leaders have been Qualcomm (QCOM), Nokia (NOK), Ericsson, and even Motorola and LG," says Daniel Gleeson, mobile analyst for IHS Screen Digest. "Samsung has been increasing its presence on the network side of the business in recent years as it wants to move from being a minor player in the technology." He adds that 5G could become a revenue stream in the long run.

If Samsung plays a key role in developing the 5G technology it would also ensure that it could bring up its role in any future patent court cases as well, and in this way future-proof itself against such complaints.

The technology behind 5G also promises greater speed that could be up to several hundred times faster than the current 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE), and would be the next generation of these existing networks. It would also require a broadband of frequencies, which Samsung noted is much like increased water flow requiring a wider pipe. As a solution, Samsung has looked to implement the transmission of data in the millimeter-wave band at a frequency of 28GHz at a speed of up to 1.056 Gbps to a distance of up to two kilometers. "Samsung has used a much higher spectrum band," Gleeson says. "The higher you go the less likely that the signal can penetrate walls and buildings. Samsung is using 28GHz, whereas today's Wi-Fi uses 2.4GHz, and we know how short the range of Wi-Fi is, but Samsung was able to deliver a signal over two kilometers, so that is the start of something."

Range won't be the only issue that could be a stalling point for 5G. The other? Spectrum limitations, already a significant problem in the United States. "What happens if 5G is compromised because of slowdowns due to network capacity?" asks Silva. "There is still the question as whether the United States can make available more spectrum to accommodate the data usage. There is also the issue of how carriers today have data caps, and if streaming a movie in a few minutes is an option, consumers could reach those data caps rather quickly."

Those are just a few problems that will need to be addressed as 5G becomes a reality. The bigger issue is that there is still no set standard and won't likely be one for some time. "There are constant efforts to make broadband faster whether it is through the wirelines or wireless," says Silva. "But you can't just snap your fingers and make it happen. We also don't know what is on the drawing boards of other companies. Until the standards are agreed upon. there is still a lot to flesh out, with a lot of moving parts that will play out in time."

On the one hand this makes a possible deadline of 2020 seem unlikely, but GSM came out in the 1990s, following by 3G in 2003, with 4G arriving in 2009. In some ways there is already a race in progress to develop the technology, as China has established a government-led "IMT-2020 (5G) Promotion Group" specifically for 5G research, while the European Commission has also announced plans to invest 50 million euros in 2013 to bring 5G to market by 2020. Given this timetable, as well as the international interest in the technology, it is quite likely that 5G could arrive in the next decade, but issues do remain.

"The problem for many countries is that on the macro level there are still difficulties in rolling out 4G," adds Gleeson. "A commercial launch of 5G thus might not come for years; it is just speculation at the moment. For one we don't know how the economy will fare or how the technology will actually develop over the next 10 years. There are just too many unanswered questions."

Police Find Deleted Messages from any Mobile

Finding Deleted Messages

Smartphone forensics experts can retrieve just about anything from any phone. Police will often seize and analyze phones for evidence of things such as indecent photos and videos, what calls were placed when and to whom, browser history, calendar events and explanations of a suicide or murder.

All of that can be uncovered whether or not a user deleted it from their phone.

"It makes it much, much harder, but wiping a phone doesn't always mean you can't get the data," said Courtney Lancaster, forensic analyst with IT consulting company TCS, at the CTIA wireless industry trade show in Las Vegas.

Forensic analysts have dozens of tools that allow them to access many layers of data on a device.

Related story: Insanely durable smartphone ... from Caterpillar?

A so-called "physical" analysis can typically retrieve deleted information that is hidden deep within a smartphone's memory. When a photo is saved, for example, the device's operating system will typically store variations of that image in several different locations -- a thumbnail view may still be available even if the original isn't.

Media can be recovered with a physical analysis even if they have been delivered by Snapchat, a controversial app that sends photos or videos to a device for just seconds.

It takes a long time, Lancaster says, but scouring a smartphone's file system bit by bit is usually worth the effort.

Realizing their smartphones could potentially serve as smoking guns in court, criminals will often attempt to destroy their phones. That can make a forensics expert's job more difficult -- but not impossible. Memory chips can often be retrieved and analyzed.

"Physical damage is not always the deal-breaker that it used to be," said Lancaster. "Data is stored where data is stored, so we don't care so much about the outer casing. Even water is not always a problem."

Those are extreme circumstances, however. Usually, retrieving information from smartphones is a cinch.

With tools like Cellebrite's forensic computer, law enforcement can simply plug in a phone and download the device's memory to a flash drive in a matter of seconds. Passwords make the job take a bit longer, but forensic computers can crack codes or bypass them relatively quickly.  

Twitter bumps Two Step Log-in after Hacks

Twitter Site Upgraded

After a series of high-profile and embarrassing hacks, Twitter has rolled out a new, two-step login to help users prevent unwanted intrusions.

The "two-factor" verification system, which will be optional, asks users to register a phone number, e-mail account and six-digit code that would have to be entered, via text message, each time they log in to the site.

"Every day, a growing number of people log in to Twitter," Jim O'Leary, of the site's security team, said in a blog post. "Usually these login attempts come from the genuine account owners, but we occasionally hear from people whose accounts have been compromised by email phishing schemes or a breach of password data elsewhere on the web."

The move comes in the wake of repeated hacks to prominent Twitter accounts in recent months.

Last month, The Associated Press's Twitter account was compromised by someone who falsely tweeted that there had been a bombing at the White House.

It was the latest in a laundry list of media organizations hacked in recent months. Among them: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Bloomberg News, CBS, "60 Minutes" and "48 Hours."

In 2011, Fox News saw its Twitter account compromised and used to send a fake message that President Obama had been assassinated.

In February, Burger King and Jeep were similarly hacked. And earlier this year, Twitter itself was hacked. User names and e-mail addresses for about 250,000 users were exposed.

In many cases, account hacking happens when the target has an easy-to-guess password, accesses the account via public Wi-Fi, or forgets to log out after using an account on a publicly shared computer. Accounts can obviously also be accessed when a user who hasn't logged out loses his or her phone or has it stolen.

But high-profile victims are often targeted by phishing, where hackers send deceptive e-mails that encourage victims to enter personal information.

Privacy advocates have long called on Twitter to beef up its security. Many security experts applauded the move Thursday, at least partially.

"Right now Twitter's 2FA (two-factor authentication) is more likely to be welcomed by individuals who own personal accounts, and small companies with a Twitter presence, than embraced by the high profile victims attacked by the (hacker group) Syrian Electronic Army in the past," Graham Cluley, of Sophos Security, wrote on his blog.

But he said it's unlikely that many of the media outlets and other high-profile organizations that have been hardest hit will take advantage of the new tools.

"Sadly, I don't think it's going to help them at all," he wrote. "Media organizations who share breaking news via social media typically have many staff, around the globe, who share the same Twitter accounts. 2FA isn't going to help these companies, because they can't all access the same phone at the same time."

For those users, he recommends a system like Facebook, on which multiple users can access the same account, to varying degrees of authority, with their own unique accounts and passwords.

Twitter's O'Leary noted that the security upgrade isn't a cure-all.

"Of course, even with this new security option turned on, it's still important for you to use a strong password and follow the rest of our advice for keeping your account secure," he wrote.

HP Joins New Envy Rove 20

HP Envy Rove 20

HP is joining the small circle of PC makers getting into the tabletop PC business with the just-announced Envy Rove 20. Calling something a tabletop PC is our shorthand for a large tablet or all-in-one that can fold down flat, and to date, we've seen versions from Dell, Sony, Asus, and Lenovo, with screens between 18 inches and 27 inches in size.

The new Rove 20 from HP most closely resembles the Sony Vaio Tap 20. Both are 20-inch designs, and both use a built-in kickstand that folds into the chassis, rather than having a display that detaches from a base (as in the case of the Dell XPS 18). Like the Tap 20, the Rove 20 is heavy, nearly 12 pounds, and too thick for anything but occasional lugging around the house.

HP says this new model will include WiDi for sending video signals to compatible external displays, Beats-branded audio, and 802.11ac Wi-Fi. Details beyond that are not yet available, as the Rove 20 is expected to have Intel's not-yet-announced next-gen Haswell processors. The system should ship sometime in July, and HP says it'll start at under $1,000.

The Rove is part of a summertime update to many HP systems, including the Envy 14, 15, and 17. More interesting is the HP Pavilion 11 TouchSmart, an 11-inch semi-sequel to one of our favorite laptops, the low-cost, AMD-powered HP dm1.

With HP joining the tabletop PC club, the mini-genre is getting a serious shot in the arm. To date, the Dell XPS 18 has been our favorite for flexibility, with a lighter, but slightly smaller, screen; and the Lenovo Horizon was well-liked for its ambitious larger size, clever tabletop gaming accessories, and custom software interface. Check out the current lineup of tabletop PCs here.

AMD launches new processors

AMD New Processor

The prerelease code names of AMD's new low-power and mainstream CPUs, Temash, Kabini, and Richland, may not mean much to laptop shoppers, but these components aim to give ultrathin laptops, tablets, and other PCs better value and battery life.

For the past several years, AMD has actually named its processors APUs rather than CPUs, which stands for accelerated processing unit, and combines a CPU and integrated graphics into a single part. The new chips follow that model, and take aim at where a lot of the action in tablet, hybrids, and laptops is right now, at the low-to-middle part of the price scale.

The new parts carry on the existing series names from AMD's previous chips (A4, A6, A8, and so on), much as Intel has done with the Core i-series, which may cause some confusion for shoppers. This breakdown should help clear that up.

The AMD Elite Mobility APU (code-named Temash) is an ambitious 28nm dual-core and quad-core system-on-chip, meant for touch-screen laptops, hybrids, and tablets, with 13-inch or smaller screens. These will now be called the AMD A4 (dual-core) and AMD A6 (quad-core), and include built-in AMD Radeon 8000-series graphics.

Despite being a very low-power chip, AMD promises support for 1080p touch displays, and greatly improved CPU and graphics performance than the previous generation.

The AMD Mainstream APU (code-named Kabini) is a mainstream dual/quad-core part for midsize entry level laptops and, with the same Radeon 8000 graphics and a promise of "all-day battery life." The dual-core version will be called the E1 and E2, while the quad-core version also uses the A4 and A6 model names.

On the higher end, the AMD Elite Performance APU (code-named Richland) is targeted at premium ultrathin laptops, and promises best-in-class graphics performance. These chips will use the A8 and A10 designations, and AMd says they have made great improvements in areas such as power efficiency during HD video playback.

The two Elite series also include new software features, including Webcam-based gesture controls, facial recognition log-in, and a screencasting feature called AMD Screen Mirror, although that would require a specially supported external TV or display.

You'll most likely find the new AMD A4, A6, A8, and A10 chips in upcoming systems from Acer, HP, and others in roughly the same time frame as Intel's next-gen Haswell chips, but offering welcome options for the budget- and midpriced-PC shopper.

Eight Years Later Brand new Xbox One

Xbox One 

Microsoft unveiled its long-awaited new game and entertainment console today, the Xbox One.

The third generation of Microsoft's console, the Xbox One integrates an advanced technical architecture with an all-new design meant to give users a personalized experience that responds almost instantly to their voice and gesture commands.

The new console, black and sleek with a horizontal slit across its center and a modern Xbox logo, features 5 billion transistors, 8GB of RAM, USB 3.0, Wi-Fi direct, a Blu-Ray drive, and a native 64-bit architecture. In addition, it has a 1080P HD RGB camera and an all-new game controller.

The Xbox One will not be backward compatible, but Microsoft said it will continue to support the Xbox 360. The new console will be released later this year, but a pricing structure was not disclosed.

Xbox One links the Xbox OS to the Windows kernel in a way meant to enable multitasking. At its core, though, the Xbox One is meant to give users a new level of personalized control over the home entertainment experience, to include games, TV, movies, and music.

For instance, the console has a built-in voice recognition system. Simply telling it, "Xbox On," powers up the console, without a need to log in or wait for software updates.

Users also can direct what they want to do by speaking certain commands. If a user says, "Xbox, go home," the console will return to the home screen. By saying, "Xbox, watch TV," it switches to live TV. Similarly, "Xbox, game," switches to game-play mode, while "Go to music" or "Go to Internet Explorer" will take a user to the music section or to a browser.Users can tell the console what they want to watch by saying, for example, "Watch CBS," or asking it, "What's on HBO?" If a person is undecided about what to watch, the home screen now has a Trending feature, which offers a snapshot of what's popular in entertainment -- both among the users' friends and across the Xbox community.

The console also has a new Kinect sensor to better recognize users' movements -- including recognizing a shift in balance from one foot to the other or even a user's heartbeat. Multiple commands can be executed through gestures. For instance, users can spread their hands and "grab" the screen to return to the home screen.

In addition, the Xbox One features an all-new Snap mode, which runs multiple programs alongside each other -- a multitasker's dream. The new console also makes HD Skype video calls possible.

Naturally, Microsoft has boosted the Xbox Live infrastructure. The company said that when Xbox Live was first unveiled in 2002, it had 500 dedicated servers. When the Xbox 360 was launched in 2005, there were 3,000. Today, the number is 15,000 servers. For Xbox One, there will be more than 300,000 servers dedicated to Xbox Live, a number larger than the world's entire computing power in 1999, according to Microsoft.

Befitting a brand-new console, the Xbox One will have a series of new games to excite hard-core users. Among them are the standard group of Electronic Arts titles: the latest versions of FIFA, Madden NFL, NBA Live, and UFC.

There also will be a new live-action Halo TV series, which will be co-produced by 343 Industries. The companies announced that film director Steven Spielberg will be involved in the series' creation.

Perhaps topping the list of new developments is the exclusive availability of downloadable content for Call of Duty: Ghosts, the latest edition in the mega-hit Call of Duty franchise.

Bangladeshi 'computer whiz kid' going to write name in Guinness Record

Wasik Farhan Roopkotha, a Bangladeshi computer whiz kid who was earlier recognized as a "wonder boy" by 'Ripley's Believe It or Not' is going to write his name in the Guinness World Record as the youngest IT expert in the world.

His first record attempt program was held at the Creative IT limited office in Dhanmondi, Dhaka recently in the presence of IT experts and journalists. There Roopkotha again showed his talents and fascinated the audiences having IT background, reported BSS.

Earlier, Cynthia Farheen Risha, the mother of the seven-year-old super genius boy, signed an agreement with the authorities of the Guinness World Record.

"Uncountable thank to the Almighty to fulfill my long-cherished dream as my son is going to write his name in the Guinness World Record as the youngest IT expert in the world." said boy's proud mother Risha.

Last year, the UK-based globally-acclaimed TV show, Ripley's Believe It or Not, placed Roopkotha in its annual cartoon book as the world's youngest computer programmer.

According to the Ripley's, those who have been placed in Ripley's cartoon book are usually included in its annual record book which publishes bizarre events and items so strange and unusual that readers might question the claims.

The authorities of Ripley's Believe It or Not have informed his parents that the Ripley's would include Roopkotha in their new annual record book, which would hit bookshops worldwide in September this year.

Earlier, the Bangladeshi super genius boy hogged the headlines of the international media as BBC News, Zee news, World news, The New York Herald Tribune, California Observer, Estate News, Children Post and many international websites ran stories on him and recognized him as the youngest computer programmer on the earth.

Roopkotha's amazing story has been included in Bangladeshi national textbook of class eight "English for Today".

The story of Roopkotha, Bangla for 'fairytale', has overshadowed even (a) fairytale. At the tender age of six, when most of the children play games with toys, Roopkatha developed his own computer system (with windows) and ran tags and code of computer programming like an expert.

The born genius, a resident of Gulshan in the capital Dhaka, unbelievably started computing when he was hardly seven months old, and learned writing on computer at the age of only two, said Risha.

She said her son's curiosity about computer had started a couple of days after his birth. He would look at computer monitor with eyes unblinking and refrained from eating until the computer was switched on.

She said Roopkotha never took IT lessons and learned everything without taking anybody's help.

Risha said he has already played more than 700 games and completed many complicated games like Sonic-knuckles(all sonic series), Prince of Persia, Terminator 3, Hercules, Air Conflicts, Age of Mythology, lock on, azangara, Metal Gear Solid, Mig-29 fulcrum, Mario Forever(all Mario series), Super Mario64 Nintendo 64, Need for Speed series, The bugs life, legend of Zelda, Star Defender, Red dead redemption, lock on flaming cliffs, Victoria: An Empire Under the Sun, Flight simulator lll, Eve online, Modern Warfare 2, FPS mechanics, Age of Empires 3, Rise of Legends, Castle vania - legacy of darkness act.

He knows operating system setup and troubleshooting. And more than 5000 English words are in his store and with the words, he can make sentences.

Typing is a very simple matter to him as the boy can type words with his tiny fingers as swift as any highly efficient typist without having a look at the keyboard.

The computer wizard can perfectly manage games project tools and synchronize any project with other projects. He can also use different complex codes and run them easily.

Roopkotha businessman father Wasim Farhan and mother Risha hope that their son would become a great programmer in future and introduce a new episode in the cyber world.

Android has become the worst enemy of Microsoft and Windows

Windows vs Android

HP, in a way, is putting Microsoft and Windows on notice with its new Android offerings.

Hewlett-Packard rolled out another Android device this week. This could become a pattern as PC makers hedge against a world that's less about Microsoft and more about Google.

On Tuesday, the largest PC maker in the world -- a dubious distinction these days -- added a laptop-tablet hybrid to its growing stable of products based on Google operating systems.

The $479 HP SlateBook x2 is an Android first for HP. It's "powered by Android, the world's most popular mobile operating system...100 percent tablet, 100 percent notebook, 100 percent Android," according to the company's ad copy.

The operative phrase is "most popular mobile operating system." HP knows that mobile, not desktop, OSes are where things are headed.

This follows the announcement of an HP Chromebook and the Slate 7 Android tablet in February.
Don't expect HP to stop there. Android is a force of nature that's only going to get bigger and more important.
Asus, another big Windows PC maker, is leaning more on Android these days too. It makes the popular Nexus 7 for Google (second-generation 7 is due soon), its Transformer Pad has been well received, and Asus came out with an Intel-based Android FonePad recently.
And Acer, after whining incessantly about Microsoft's foray into the PC business via Surface, has been busy introducing its share of Android devices, like its most recent entrant, the Iconia A1.
All of the above "PC makers" will continue to make Windows laptops, hybrids, and tablets (HP also announced the Windows 8-based Split x2 this week), but the market momentum is in Android's favor.

Bitcoin exchange Got Hits

Bitcoin

U.S. law enforcement officials cracked down this week on the Bitcoin economy's biggest exchange, Mt. Gox, accusing its operator of running a money transmitting business without the proper license and freezing several of its key financial accounts.

The move sent a brief chill through the Bitcoin community, though some enthusiasts shrugged it off as an inevitable consequence of the cyber currency's growing public profile. A few even defended the feds. "This isn't the government trying to kill anything," one commenter wrote on Reddit's Bitcoin discussion board. "This is them locking accounts because they didn't file the right paperwork."

Mt. Gox is by far the biggest exchange in the Bitcoin economy, handling about 66% of all currency conversions.
The drama started on Tuesday, when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security obtained a warrant to seize the contents of Mt. Gox's account with Dwolla, a payment processing network based in Des Moines, Iowa.
Dwolla is one of the key services used by Tokyo-based Mt. Gox to let its American customers convert U.S. dollars into bitcoins and vice versa. The company stopped processing transactions to and from Mt. Gox's account after it received the warrant and tried to distance itself from the dispute.

Mt. Gox said it is investigating the matter. In the meantime, it posted a statement saying U.S. customers will only be able to deposit and withdraw funds with an international money order or by using OKPay, an international currency conversion system.
Related: How porn links snuck into Bitcoin's code
Will any customers lose funds? That's currently unclear. Federal officials now presumably have control of any funds that were sitting in the account's coffers, as well as a Wells Fargo account that was also targeted.
DHS declined to comment on its investigation, but it provided several news outlets, including CNNMoney, with a copy of its seizure warrant.
According to the document, Mt. Gox's U.S. subsidiary set up a Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) business account in May 2011. At the time, the company filled out a "money services business" questionnaire and said it was not a firm that dealt in or exchanged money for its customers.
Not so, say the feds. Because U.S. dollars can be passed back and forth on Mt. Gox through bitcoin conversions, they consider the site's operations to be a "money transmitting activity."
Related: Feds crack down on Mt. Gox Bitcoin exchange
The crackdown comes less than two months after the U.S. government issued new rules saying that virtual currency exchanges will be subject to the same kinds of anti-money laundering rules that banks have to follow.
The volatile currency is becoming a significant economic force. The value of 1 bitcoin zoomed from $20 at the start of the year to a record high of $266 in April. It's now worth about $115. There are roughly 11 million bitcoins in circulation, giving the entire economy a market cap of around US$1.2 billion.

'Astroarchaeologists' to Revive Dead Satellite

Satellite

It sounds like the opener to a sci-fi B-movie plot: Scientists find an old, dead satellite from the 1970′s orbiting Earth. Out of interest, they send a command to the chunk of space junk to switch it on, just on the off-chance its circuits are still intact…

However, this is not a fictional account of tinkering with 40-year old technology. A British Ph.D. student really wants to wake up an old satellite, one that hasn’t transmitted since 1996.

The satellite, called Prospero X3, is the only British satellite to have been launched by a British rocket in 1971. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of its launch, Roger Duthie and colleagues from University College London’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) want to reestablish contact with the 66 kilogram silent spacecraft.

The satellite, called Prospero X3, is the only British satellite to have been launched by a British rocket in 1971. To commemorate the 40th anniversary of its launch, Roger Duthie and colleagues from University College London’s Mullard Space Science Laboratory (MSSL) want to reestablish contact with the 66 kilogram silent spacecraft.

Prospero was designed to investigate the orbital space environment and its mission was completed in 1973. However, for another two decades the satellite was contacted annually.

Although the program was canceled before Prospero was launched atop a Black Arrow rocket on Oct. 28, 1971, there has been a resurgence in British interests in space. The nation has an active (and profitable) satellite production industry, but since that single 1971 launch, Britain has depended on other space agencies to get their hardware into space.

But last year, the UK Space Agency was set up to oversee all civil interests in space, so the situation is gradually changing.

Therefore, to signify the 40th anniversary of the only British satellite to have ever been launched by a British rocket will be of huge national interest and pride. Enter Duthie who hopes to ‘talk’ with Prospero’s old circuits. Due to the nature of their work, Duthie and his team call themselves “Astro-archaeologists.”

The task to communicate with this spacecraft is no small one, made even more difficult by the fact that the group who used to communicate with the satellite had been disbanded and communication codes were lost.

“The technical reports made in the 1970s were thought to have been lost,” Duthie told BBC News. “We talked to the people involved in Prospero, searched through dusty boxes in attics and tried the library at [the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough].”

In a stroke of good fortune, Prospero’s codes were found, typed on a piece of paper in the National Archives at Kew, London.

Although they may have the “key” to the spacecraft, the team need to build custom equipment to transmit a signal and get permission from the UK broadcast regulator Ofcom to use the radio frequency now utilized by other satellites in orbit.

Interestingly, once everything is set up on the ground, and if communication is possible — and that’s a big if, space can be a harsh environment for any electronics, regardless of which century they were built — the researchers may find that some of the scientific payload is still operational.

“It’s an artifact of British engineering; we should find out how it’s performing,” said Duthie.

For more on the UK’s Black Arrow rocket, watch the fascinating documentary, “Once We Had a Rocket”:

Intel ex-CEO looks back at biggest blown call: Missing out on the iPhone

Intel X-CEO

Paul Otellini, who retired as the chip giant's CEO on Thursday, tells The Atlantic that he didn't do what it takes for Intel to be in Apple's initial smartphone.

Paul Otellini passed up one of the biggest opportunities in Intel's history -- supplying chips for the first iPhone, the chipmaker's former CEO said.

Otellini "decided against doing what it took" to make the chips for Apple's smartphone, The Atlantic reported, based on an interview with the newly retired executive. Here's what he told the publication:

We ended up not winning it or passing on it, depending on how you want to view it. And the world would have been a lot different if we'd done it. The thing you have to remember is that this was before the iPhone was introduced and no one knew what the iPhone would do...At the end of the day, there was a chip that they were interested in that they wanted to pay a certain price for and not a nickel more and that price was below our forecasted cost. I couldn't see it. It wasn't one of these things you can make up on volume. And in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought.

He added that "my gut told me to say yes."

Otellini stepped down as Intel's CEO on Thursday, handing the reins over to the company's manufacturing head, Brian Krzanich. During his time, Intel dominated the PC and server chip business, but it largely missed out on mobile devices. The company has made some traction in recent months, but it still isn't in any blockbuster, flagship devices. In addition, it's late with the development of 4G LTE, which will continue to hinder its chances in the market.As Otellini noted, it wasn't clear several years ago how well Apple's first iPhone would sell or that such a device would change the entire computing industry. One thing Intel has long prided itself on -- and investors have come to expect -- is high margins. It gets those lofty margins from pricing its chips higher than processors from some rivals, and mobile chips sell for much less than the typical Intel PC processor. Apple often negotiates attractive component pricing, but Intel likely didn't want to give a price cut for an unproven product.

And while Otellini's comments make it sound like the main reason Intel wasn't in the iPhone was pricing, battery life likely also played a role. Intel chips generally have been much more power hungry than processors based on ARM Holdings technology, like those from Qualcomm and Apple itself. Intel only recently started focusing on lowering the power consumption of its chips, many years after the iPhone first launched.

Speculation has popped up recently that Intel may one day manufacture Apple's chips for the company, but it's pretty likely that pricing remains a sticking point for any agreement. Krzanich, Intel's new CEO, would be smart to remember the biggest regret of his predecessor.

Windows 8 sales off to brisk start

Microsoft Windows 8

Microsoft reports selling 40 million Windows 8 licenses, Gmail makes large file transfers easier, and several apps get a holiday makeover.

A Microsoft executive revealed that 40 million licenses of Windows 8 have been sold since it came out last month. These numbers include both consumers and manufacturers, so Windows 8 isn't in 40 million homes. But to compare, Windows 7 hit sales of 60 million the first two months. Some say Windows 8 is off to an awkward start, and there is a learning curve with the new system.

Also in today's tech news roundup:

- Gmail works with Google Drive to let users send 10GB files.

- Vimeo makes it easier to create and share videos on its new iPhone app.

- Skype's updated iOS app lets users connect with a Microsoft account.

- Rdio gave its streaming music player a new look on Android and iOS.

- Xbox has an update to fix issues with SmartGlass and Xbox Music.

- Outlook.com boasts 25 million active users and now has its own Android app.