Software : Next for Android Wear: customized watch faces, GPS and offline music playback

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Next for Android Wear: customized watch faces, GPS and offline music playback Posted: As promised Google is supporting its burgeoning Android Wear smartwatch platform with its first update rolling out in the coming months. The everything giant announced the first update will bring offline GPS support and offline music playback to wearables running its smartwatch OS. Smartwatches with built-in GPS sensors such as Sony's SmartWatch 3 will track your distance and speed when you go on a run. There's no official word whether GPS support includes turn-by-turn direction or whether a map that tracks your position will be displayed, but it seems like one of the obvious uses for a wrist-worn device. The first update will also bring offline music playback, letting users wireless stream songs stored on their smartwatch to a pair of Bluetooth headphones. Google imagines both these new features will be useful for those who want to leave their smartphone during a run or bike ride. After all, no one likes having a mobile device jumping around their pocket during a workout. Once users come back home the watch will re-sync, transferring all the updated stats to your handset. What face is it? The second update Google has lined up will bring downloadable watch faces. These new designs won't just include different analog and digital clock face; users will also be able to customize their watch's home screen with widgets like their calendar and fitness data. Soon enough users will also be able to download new developer-created watch faces from the Google Play store. Lastly Google promises it's working with manufacturers to create even more watch options on top of what it helped introduce at IFA 2014. Supposedly these new wearables will feature different shapes, styles and sensors. Get a good look at the Moto 360 because your chances of getting one are slim

Apple's solution to stop another iCloud hack is toothless Posted: The recent iCloud hack might have allegedly only targeted celebrities, but Apple is trying to reassure users that it is beefing up security for everyone. Apple CEO Tim Cook promised new push notifications and email alerts will be sent to users when someone tries to change their account password. At the same time every time users will also be notified whenever a new device access their iCloud account. The system should go live within the next two weeks. In top of informing users of any suspicious activity they will also be able to change their password or inform Apple of the problem. Apple hopes these new measures will prevent users from being blindsided by another phishing attack attempting to break into accounts to steal photos and data. Half measures Cook also did a bit of damage control noting that no Apple IDs or passwords were compromised in last weekend's embarrassing leak of private celebrity photos. Moving forward Cook said he believes informing users of security breaches will more effective against hacking attacks rather than a technological solution. "When I step back from this terrible scenario that happened and say what more could we have done, I think about the awareness piece," Cook said in his interview with The Wall Street Journal. "I think we have a responsibility to ratchet that up. That's not really an engineering thing." The Cupertino company also plans encourage more users to enable "two-factor authentication" when logging into their accounts. When turned on the security system asks for an extra bit of information - such as a four-digit texted to the user's cellphone number – to ensure the person trying to access iCloud is actually the account owner. Supposedly if the affected celebrities activated system it would have prevented the hackers from being able to force their way though by guessing iCloud passwords over and over again. Too little, too late it seems Hopefully the iPhone 6 and iOS 8 will come with new and better security features

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