Software : Instagram hackers on a health kick with fruit-based posts to user profiles |
- Instagram hackers on a health kick with fruit-based posts to user profiles
- Trouble in paradise? Nokia blasts Microsoft for Windows Phone app failings
- Tired of stubborn app permissions? Android 4.3 has a fix for that
- Google is evidently working on real-time mobile translation tech
| Instagram hackers on a health kick with fruit-based posts to user profiles Posted:  We're used to seeing gratuitous #FoodPorn pictures posted to Instagram on a daily basis, but some users are claiming their accounts have been commandeered, with unsolicited fruit-based posts appearing on their profiles. A significant number of users have taken to Twitter claiming shots of fruit and smoothies have been posted without their knowledge, forcing some to reset their passwords, while locking others out completely. The photos feature text encouraging users to try out a new diet, while broken web links (made to look like they emanate from the BBC) have been added to affected users' bios. It's the second time in as many months some users have come under attack in this way, following a similar incident in June, and the motives of the hackers remain unclear. Big breachGoogle Ventures filmmaker Graeme Hancock was among those affected, tweeting: "Big security breach definitely happening on Instagram. This is the third hacked account I've seen including mine." Instagram is yet to comment on the breach and it's unclear whether passwords of more users have been harvested by the hackers for future use. Unless you want your Instagram account acting all fruity too, we'd recommend a quick password change. |
| Trouble in paradise? Nokia blasts Microsoft for Windows Phone app failings Posted:  Nokia has expressed frustration with Microsoft's failure to give smartphone users a convincing reason to switch to Windows Phone, in comments representing the public first signs of strain in the pair's relationship. The Finnish company's vice president Bryan Biniak said Microsoft has not held up its end of the bargain because essential, frontline apps are still missing from the Windows Phone store. In an interview with the IBTimes, Biniak said smartphone users are unwilling to compromise their mobile lives by switching to the platform, regardless of how impressive recent hardware releases have been. He said Nokia is trying to 'change the culture' at Microsoft' in order to stress that the battle to overhaul iOS and Android cannot wait any longer. Give me a reasonHe said: "To give you a reason to switch, I need to make sure the apps that you care about on your device are not only on our phones, but are better. I also need to provide you unique experiences that you can't get on your other devices." "People rely on applications for their day-to-day life and if you don't have something which I use in my day-to-day life I'm not going to switch [operating systems] because I don't want to compromise the way I live my life just to switch to a phone. "It's not just about the hardware, it's about the tools that are on the hardware. You can't sell a phone without the apps, you just can't." No time to wasteNokia's recent launches have included the impressive Lumia 925 and the soon to be released 41-megapixel Lumia 1020 cameraphone. However, the Finns are concerned these great handsets will stay under the radar for potential buyers due to Microsoft's lack of haste in attracting top developers to the platform Biniak added: "We are releasing new devices frequently and for every new device, if there is an app that somebody cares about that's not there that's a missed opportunity of a sale. "We are trying to evolve the cultural thinking [at Microsoft] to say 'time is of the essence.' Waiting until the end of your fiscal year when you need to close your targets, doesn't do us any good when I have phones to sell today." If you want a job doing well...Although the app gulf between Windows Phone and iOS and Android isn't as large as it was, Microsoft's platform is still missing apps like Instagram, a Facebook app worthy of the name, and of course, Google's impressive suite. Nokia has attempted to take matters into its own hands, campaigning for the launch of Instagram on Windows Phone, while also securing an exclusive deal to bring FIFA '13 to Lumia Phones. On that note, Biniak saved his most scathing comment until last. He said: "As a company we don't want to rely on somebody else and sit and wait for them to get it right." Will Biniak's comments jar Microsoft into caring as much about Windows Phone as it does about Windows 8 and Xbox? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below. |
| Tired of stubborn app permissions? Android 4.3 has a fix for that Posted:  It can be hard for Android users to keep track of what exactly their apps are doing, but it looks like that's about to change with Android 4.3. Android Police caught wind of a function called "App Ops" in the latest Android update that lets you control exactly what apps can access, be that navigation, data, phone calls or something else. That way if specific apps are acting up and, for example, using your phone's GPS while you don't want to turn navigation off system-wide, you can go into App Ops and restrict the problematic app's permissions. It seems the feature isn't fully ready yet, but there are a number of ways for adventurous Android users to activate it. You have my permission to dieTechRadar asked Google to clarify whether users were meant to access these controls and whether the App Ops feature will ever be implemented more fully in the OS. We haven't heard back from the company yet, but we'll keep you posted. In the meantime, it seems the easiest way to access individual apps' permissions on Android 4.3 is to open the app and navigate through the settings menu to "App Ops." But to get the full App Ops experience you can download a third party called Permission Manager app from Google Play. The app was launched yesterday, though it looks like these functions weren't yet meant to be accessed in this way, so use at your own risk. But if you do boot it up, it should display a list of all your apps with the specific functions each use and a timestamp showing the last time they used them. It's divided into four categories based on permissions related to "messaging," "location," "personal" and "device." Selecting an app shows a full list of permissions for it with easy on/off toggles, though it seems those permissions won't show up there until the app has tried to use them at least once. That means at this point you'll never know if the list is complete, since location permissions for Facebook won't show up there until Facebook has tried to use location services at least once. It's a slight annoyance that may be part of the reason this feature isn't 100 percent there yet. In addition, if you turn off location services for, say, Facebook, then forget that you did so, the system won't remind you if you try to use geotags in Facebook and the app can't access the GPS. It simply won't work. So again, use at your own risk, and hopefully "App Ops" will get more official in a future Android update. |
| Google is evidently working on real-time mobile translation tech Posted:  Google has its sights set on the future with projects like Google Fiber and Google Glass, and now it's adding real time voice-to-voice translation to that list as well. Google's Vice President of Android Hugo Barra said this week that Google is now in the early stages of creating real time translation software that it hopes to perfect within the next "several years," according to The UK Times. The company already has prototype phones that can translate speech in real time, so that a user speaks into the device in one language and the person on the other end hears it in a different one, like the fictional Babel fish in 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy' or the TARDIS in Doctor Who. "That is where we're headed," Barra told the publication. "We've got tons of prototypes of that sort of interaction, and I've played with it every other week to see how much progress we've made." Same old hurdlesGoogle's speech-to-speech translation project is reportedly being developed as part of Google Now, Google services suite that's being designed to predict your needs before you know them. The real-time translation is reportedly better for certain language pairs, such as Portuguese and English, but accuracy remains an issue. Anyone who's tried to use Apple's Siri or Android's voice-to-text services knows that a little background noise can cause a lot of inaccuracies, and that's something Google is wrestling with still.
The groundwork for real time voice-to-voice translation certainly exists, though, between that speech recognition software and Google's online Google Translate service. Google said that on that service alone it translates a billion entries per day in 71 languages, and it just added new languages from places like the Philippines, South East Asia and Indonesia. Don't stop me nowGoogle discussed voice translation software back in 2010, when Google Distinguished Research Scientist and head of machine translation Franz Och offered this: "We think speech-to-speech translation should be possible and work reasonably well in a few years' time. Clearly, for it to work smoothly, you need a combination of high-accuracy machine translation and high-accuracy voice recognition, and that's what we're working on. "If you look at the progress in machine translation and corresponding advances in voice recognition, there has been huge progress recently." It would have been nice if he was right - we'd probably have real time voice translation on our Galaxy S4 right now. But at least we know they're still working on it.
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