Apple Unveils Smaller iPhone and iPad Pro

Apple’s Smaller Version of iPhone & iPad Pro

At an event held in San Francisco which had been streamed online, Apple had announced smaller versions of the iPhone and iPad Pro. The firm has informed that the iPhone SE seems to have the same processing as well as graphics performance of the larger Apple 6S and can capture 4K video. The new iPad Pro tends to have a 9.7 inch screen which is the same as the original iPad and the iPhone SE would be made available in 110 countries towards the end of May.

With the price starting at $399/$499, the latest iPhone is said to be the most affordable handsetthat Apple has ever released, according to the company. Moreover, the new iPad Pro would be available in three different storage sizes together with an additional larger 256 GB version.

For the smaller version, the pricing would start at $599 and will be shipped in the US towards the end of the month. Apple had mentioned that last year, it had sold 30 million four-inch handsets though the sales of the handset seemed to have slowed down in recent months in line with the total smartphone market. Some of the analysts have predicted a 15% decline in shipments in the first quarter of 2016.

Apple - `Not to Shrink’ from Responsibility to Protect Encryption

Annette Zimmerman, research director at analyst Gartner had stated that `the smart phone market has definitely consolidated around five and six inch devices, globally, so the question is why has Apple come out with a slightly smaller version?’ She added that it is not actually to capture a trend but the individuals who are on iPhone 4 or 5 seem to be quite content with the size.

 It is a means of upgrading them and selling a phone with a smaller screen size tends to help with the margins on the devices’. Tom Cook, chief executive informed that the Apple’s court battle with the FBI over encryption heads to court on Tuesday and said that he did not ever expect to be `at odds with the government’.

He stated that Apple `would not shrink’ from its responsibility to protect encryption. His comment was met with a warm applause from the audience though Tuesday would be a different story when the company tends to come face to face with the families of the victim of the San Bernardino attack.

iPhone SE & iPad Pro - Crucial Products

With the sales of iPhone slowing down, Apple needs to get some new customers and the iPhone would probably do just that. It would be aimed at the kind of individuals with budgets that cannot stretch to a new premium iPhone and the user who could have gone instead for an Android device.

Contrasting from the 5c, Apple’s last budget iPhone, the SE does not come in a range of economical and cheerful colours and is meant to feel like a top product though smaller. The iPhone SE and iPad Pro 9.7 is seen as largely iterative though they seem to be still crucial products for Apple since it looks to support growth across two significantly important sets.

The firm also portrayed a recycling robot known as Liam that can strip down old iPhone into their components for reuse. According to Tim Cook, Apple Watch would bring down its price to $299 from its launch price of $349.

EaseUS Partition Master Review: Managing Your Disk Space Efficiently

Managing the disk space in your computer or laptop can make a whole lot of difference. Although, computers have become an integral part of our personal and professional lifestyle, we hardly focus on how we can manage the data in the right way which would not only help us to find the information in a better way, but also help the system to detect and store the files in an efficient way. Disk management software is critical for proper management of the disk space and this is where EaseUS Partition Master comes in.

EaseUS Partition Master is a comprehensive solution for those who want to manage their computer disk space efficiently. The software supports multiple operating systems like Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7, Vista and Windows XP. It is also compatible with Windows Server 2003, 2008 and 2012.

The software is ideal to extend volume Windows 7 software. It can manage partitions and therefore users can quickly resize, merge, move and split partitions without any data loss. Users that make use of Windows 7 after upgrade would find that they have low disk storage problems. With EaseUS Partition Manager extending volume on Windows 7 becomes easier and it makes the disk partition process simpler.

Disk space management software often have complicated process which requires some technical knowledge. With this software there is no need for technical expertise as the software has a simpler way to create and manage partitions.

It can also help users to partition external hard drive and other devices. If the users are not sure about how to partition an external hard drive EaseUS Partition Master is an easy way to resolve the problem. This free software supports disks of up to 8 TB GPT in size.

The software also makes it easier and convenient for the users to clone disk and volumes to protect data or upgrade disk without any requirement for Windows system reinstallation. It can also help in recovering partitions that have been deleted or lost on an unallocated space that might have occurred due to hardware/software failure or due to any virus attack.

This program is available for free and therefore you ensure that your laptop or computer stores the information efficiently and manage partitions to improve your productivity. With over 30 million downloads already, EaseUS Partition Master remains the most preferred choice of users looking to manage and resize partitions on hard disk.

Why the Government can’t Actually Stop Terrorists from Using Encryption

Encrypted devices at the hand of the governmental agencies seem like a bliss but same is made available for the common public or more importantly lands in the hands of terrorists then world appears to be in danger. U.S. government is currently failing to gain an upper hand in the fight to compel the tech giant Apple and others to give access to their encrypted devices. But having to these encrypted devices and technologies will not be enough to marginalize the wide availability of same technologies to the terrorists and criminal minded individuals.

How the encrypted service or devices turns to be out-of-reach of U.S. government

Most of the encrypted products and services are made by the developers who are from all parts of globe. In simple words most of the encryption projects happens to be open source in nature which brings an amalgamation of great developers from across the globe and it puts them out of government’s reach as well.

An example will help in understanding the limitation of governmental agencies in going after the encrypted services and products. There is a popular instant messaging service based in Germany called Telegram and it offers one of kind encrypted chat functionality. Another encrypted services provider which helps in encrypted voice call and test messages is called Silent Phone which is based in Switzerland. They are simply out of reach of the U.S. government but are easily available for the public and criminal minded individuals alike.

Open source projects are simply driving the ushering of encrypted technologies reach

A research conducted by the Open Technology Institute has revealed that there are about 16 different applications for encrypted communications are being developed outside of US mainly through the open source projects.

U.S. government hands are simply tied as it can’t stop the developers from developed such application outside its borders. However it is enraging a battle against the domestic companies which offers encryption services to its consumers.

Even more number of common users has started making use of strong means and forms of encryption technologies than before for their own reasons. This has made it necessary for the tech companies to bring such encrypted features in their own applications as default in order to reign in consumers from adopting other applications. iPhone has already brought the features of setting up the password by default in order to encrypt the information stored on the device. On other hand Facebook owned Whatsapp is thinking aggressively about bring an encrypted texts and messages features on its instant messaging platform.

U.S. government has finally understood that with continuous availability and emergence of new mode of encrypted communication applications it is not feasible to reign in the availability to the users. But as it is working on other front of reducing the amount of information which is likely to get encrypted by bringing in default encryption features in the popular applications and devices. In other words U.S. battle against encryption is not going to stop the common users and terrorist alike from using the encryption technologies in future.

The Hearing Aid Hacked to Hear Wi-Fi

Smartphone Apps – Translating Characteristic of Wireless Network

Wearable technology is very often linked with smartwatches as well as smart glasses though a person in the UK had hacked his own hearing aid in order to tune in to the sounds of close wi-fi networks. Co-founder of Phantom Terrains, Frank Swain utilises smartphone app for translating the characteristics of wireless networks like their name and speed into sound while traveling around London.

Frank Swain – 32 years, is a science writer from London and was first diagnosed with early onset of hearing loss in his 20s. He had been fitted with hearing aids in 2012 and no sooner had he received it; he began envisaging how he could hack them so that he could hear more of the world around him. He specifically wanted to be capable of hearing something which tends to fill the modern landscape though it is undetectable to the ears. Swain in simple terms wanted to be capable of hearing Wi-Fi signals.

Two years thereafter, on receiving a grant from UK innovation charity – Nesta, the UK innovation charity, Swain together with sound artist Daniel Jones jointly produced Phantom Terrain, which is a new tool that makes Wi-Fi signals distinct. Anyone would have considered this as an odd choice till they study how the electromagnetic signals tend to permeate our modern environment.

Matter of Time – Internet of Things

Users tend to use wireless signals daily for phone calls, check the emails, access navigational data, listen to the radio and surf the web. Considering its present rate of growth, it is said to be only a matter of time before all the devices, sensors, routers as well as signals accompany the `Internet of Things’, an age wherein the world seems to be bounded by digital second skin which tends to cover the physical world that is also inseparable from our lives.

However, the infrastructure for this seems vague to us and that is the reason Swain and Jones developed Phantom Terrain in order that individuals could tune into these arenas. The software can run on a hacked iPhone that utilises inbuilt Wi-Fi sensors to pick important details regarding nearby fields comprising of the router name, encryptions, signal strength and the distance.

While his phone tends to remain in his pocket, Swain can get an aural map blended in with the normal output of the hearing aids. The distant signals seems to get interrupted as background clicks which differ with proximity while the closer and more powerful signals buzz their own network ID information in a entwined melody.

Digital Hearing – Recreate Soundscape/Amplifying Sound/Supressing Noise

Jones informed that on a busy street, one may see more than a hundred independent wireless access points in a signal range and the strength of the signal, direction, name and the security level on these are converted into audio stream made of a foreground and background layer.

Narrating his experience, Swain relates that recreating hearing is an incredibly difficult task and unlike glasses, that simply brings the world into focus, digital hearing aid tend to recreate the soundscape, amplifying useful sound and suppressing noise. As this changes by the second, sorting one from the other needs a lot of programming.

As internet technology, wireless communication and connected devices tend to become more common, the capacity of sensing the strength, intensity and what these signals imply regarding our environment would become more sought after thing. One could speculate without much effort that Wi-Fi mapping tends to become a part of urban or community planning besides sociological or environmental studies.

Chinese Hackers Behind U.S. Ransomware Attacks Security Firms

A group of four security firm investigating the cyber attacks on the U.S. based companies has found that most of the hackers make use of the same tactics and tools which were once associated with the Chinese government supported cyber attacks. Ransomware has become a major tool for unleashing the cyber attacks on the unsuspecting common users. Ransomware as the name suggests simply take over the control of the system and very carefully encrypts all the data stored on the system which leaves it inaccessible to the users. In order to get back the access users are required to a ransom of few Bitcoins.

Hackers tricks users into installing Ransomware

Security firms have stated that hackers use various complex and highly intelligent ways to spread ransomware by actively exploiting the vulnerabilities found in the application servers. Once vulnerability has been compromised hackers tricks users into installing ransomware on their devices. In one of the recent attacks more than 30% of the machines at transportation and a technology firm were infected with the ransomware.

The rise of ransomware over the years

Ransomeware aren’t something new as it has been in wide usage by the cyber criminals over a decade. In the beginning unsuspecting users were lured into downloading infected programs or antivirus suits which when installed happens to overtake the device and requires a ransom of certain amount in order to get back the access.

However in the recent years cyber criminals has got hand at the better encryption techniques which ensures that users wouldn’t be able to get access to their files without paying the ransom. Formatting the devices is a great way to do away with the ransomware but it comes at the cost of losing all the data associated with device. Ransomware payments are mainly made in the virtual currency Bitcoin which offers secrecy from governmental agencies and others.

‘Mind’ game behind ransom

Ransomware happens to be one of the most successful tools of the cyber criminals as a greater percentage of infected users end up in paying the modest ransom amount for their inaccessible data. Cyber criminals usually set a modest price as a ransom in order to give back the access to the users. Most of the victims are willing to pay this amount in order to get back their data and it also results in getting positive response in the online sphere. Assume a victim pays about 1 or 2 Bitcoin which amounts to $600 and he gets back the access to its data and he give a feedback on the online forums that he was relieved to get access to data finally after paying then ransom operators. In short all the other victims searching for this malady online will be more willing to pay on basis of this feedback.

On other hand security firms have warned victims that paying ransom will only end up in making cyber criminals much more ambitious. Very soon they will shift from asking ransoms of few Bitcoins to performing some complicated scams and credit card theft as well.