Computers

Remember the days of Buzz? It was Google's kinda-sorta social network that made Google Reader into a Twitter-type platform for sharing cool stuff online. Not too many people cared to use it, and in October 2011 Google announced that it'd eventually discontinue the service. Finally and at long last, Google's determined that the time has arrived. Doors are closing on Buzz forever, and you'll receive a backup data file of all your posts saved to your Google Drive on or after July 17, 2013. Any active Buzz users out there better take note – your service is only guaranteed through July 17. For everyone else, you can go about continuing to live your lives. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »

How much has Apple's iPhone camera improved over time? The makers of Camera+, a filtered-photos camera app for smartphones, did some cool tests to find out.Our first test is a a well-lit macro setting, to test the detail and quality of the cameras This is a macro test using the very iPhone. Yuck. This one was taken by the second iPhone, the iPhone 3G. Better, but the detail is still really blurry. See the rest of the story at Business Insider Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Maggie Philbin introduced a whole generation to the wonders of technology as a presenter on the BBC’s legendary Tomorrow’s World show in the 1980s. During her eight-year stint on the program, she demonstrated the mobile phone, in-car satellite navigation, digital photography and more, all for the first time on British television. Since then, she has stayed very much involved in technology. She currently presents the BBC’s popular science show Bang Goes the Theory, and she works to inspire a whole new generation of technologists with the TeenTech initiative that she co-founded. TeenTech inspires young people to consider careers in technology through events targeted at schools. It even partners teens with good ideas up with companies and organizations such as Airbus and NASA to help them develop their ideas under NDA. At the Thinking Digital conference in Gateshead, UK this week, I caught up with Philbin to hear more about TeenTech and how the technology industry and TV producers alike should be doing more to encourage young people to look at a technology career. Oh, and is the time right for Tomorrow’s World to return? As a bonus, here she is discussing some new thing called digital photography on Tomorrow’s World in 1985:

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You should watch this video, which comes to us via CNET. There are only so many Google Glass units out there now, but imagine a world where they're even more plentiful than the smartphone – to not have one is to be less than whole. Then you might very well have people taking pictures and videos so casually that they lose self-consciousness and get lost in the moment of just trying to take a good photo. The guy in this video is happy to demonstrate for you. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »

SEOUL, South Korea — This year, North Korea has been flaunting its nuclear hardware in an effort to extort concessions from the United States and South Korea. But the tactic has failed to provoke panic for one key reason: Officials doubt that Pyongyang would be stupid enough to start a nuclear war. While nukes are better seen than used, and thus of limited blackmail value, dictator Kim Jong Un possesses a quieter weapon that’s more readily unleashed — and has already become a serious nuisance: cyber war. Experts say Pyongyang typically deploys it about once a year, although it’s not always clear that North Korea is behind the attacks. The most recent offensive hit Seoul in April 2013. The strike disabled anti-virus software, brought down ATMs across the country and froze online banking systems for days. About 30,000 computers had their hard drives wiped and went dead. In an Austin Powers-style twist, the malicious software displayed pixelated skulls on the monitors of infected machines. After initially saying the strike originated in China, officials tracked it to a specific Pyongyang neighborhood. A month before the assault erupted, they said, hackers had quietly planted a simple but devastating software program on computers at three South Korean television broadcasters and three banks. Authorities identified the code as a hard-drive wiper called “DarkSeoul,” first identified a year ago. Although this type of virus is relatively simple and has been around since the early 1980s, experts acknowledged that its impact was devastating. A computer security expert from Cisco, Seth Hanford, wrote that the “highly targeted” attack led to significant downtime and a “severe” loss of data. On April 12, North Korea denied it was the culprit, but the South has maintained the accusation. Although North Korea is among the poorest and most isolated countries, it is surprisingly adept at hacking — a testament to how dangerously accessible cyber warfare is to anyone that wants to pursue it. Training a cyber brigade, it turns out, does not demand high levels of tech sophistication, and is a handy way to pester a far stronger foe. A convenient arsenal On the Korean battlefield — which remains manned 60 years after the end of the shooting war that divided the Koreas — the North is indisputably outgunned and outmaneuvered. That fact has led Pyongyang to adopt a modified guerrilla warfare strategy. As the Pentagon described it in a May report to Congress: “North Korea uses small-scale attacks to gain psychological advantage in diplomacy and win limited political and economic concessions.” In the 1970s and 1980s, Pyongyang sent agents on risky operations to sabotage South Korean targets and hijack one South Korean civilian airliner. In November 2010, the north launched an artillery barrage at an island near the DMZ, and sunk a South Korean naval corvette in March 2010, leaving 46 South Korean sailors dead. Strikes like these, however, can provoke dangerous retaliation. In contrast, cyber warfare supports the nation’s military strategy, and carries less risk. A digital offensive requires a “very low developmental cost and can bring catastrophic results,” said Hyeong-wook Boo, an analyst at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses, a think tank in Seoul. “The North Korean espionage team sees cyberspace as a very favorable place for its activities.” The threat has been looming since the late 1990s, when North Korea unleashed its first basic denial of service (DDoS) attacks on its neighbor. Since then, the computer plots have become somewhat more sophisticated, targeting South Korean banks and businesses with malware and throwing the occasional wrench in the markets. According to the National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s spy agency, the north was probably behind six cyber attacks from 2008 to 2012. Two of the largest came i

Despite improvements in processing power in recent years, battery life remains an issue with the growth of mobile devices. Intel has looked to address this with a new family of Core processors code-named Haswell, which the company said Thursday will offer up to 50 percent more battery life for laptops than its previous Ivy Bridge chips provided -- all without impairing performance. The Haswell chips are designed specifically with those on-the-go devices, notably laptops and tablets.

I can't prove it, but I bet that on a long enough timeline a majority of technology gets reappropriated for our sexual gratification. Some products get into the erotic side of things later in their life cycles, but some get heaps of sexy attention right away. Given all that, is it really any surprise that we wondered how Google Glass will change porn? We talked to some active professionals working in the pornography industry to get their opinions on how Google's face-based computer will factor into (and maybe even change) the business of dirty pictures. Since it records video from the wearer's perspective, the immediate thought is that it Glass would make an awesome means to record point-of-view porn, sinking a viewer into exactly what the actor sees. Lee Roy Myers of WoodRocket.com told us he feels that "if the quality is high and the footage is not too dizzying, it will offer viewers a completely new POV porn viewing experience. We can get shots that we never could before because of the placement and size of the camera. Is it the future of porn? I don't know. But I am excited to try it and see." But forget for a moment those worries of video production. Google Glass has a nice feature for the more pragmatic porn customer – it's hands-free. "I see Glass taking the porn viewing experience into a place where it’s completely hands-free, and which greatly reduces distractions that might be 'mood killers,'" said Allison Vivas, president of porn site Pink Visual. And it's no secret that the porn industry has been rocky in the past – with so many sites streaming adult content for free, there's often little or no motivation to shell out the cash that would otherwise compensate the actors, directors, crew, and the like. But Vivas thinks Glass presents a real opportunity here, saying "if Glass somehow introduces a means to supply consumers with a porn experience that can’t be pirated, that would be an enormous boon to the adult industry, as we’ve been absolutely ravaged by content piracy in recent years." Gamelink is a 20+ year veteran of the adult industry and focuses on digital distribution of porn films. When I spoke to CEO Jeff Dillon, he made a cool distinction – Gamelink is a technology company, not a porn company. "We're the Amazon of porn," he said. "So I'd love to see a Glass app that can recognize sex toys used in movies then take the user to a place online where they can buy them." In a roundabout way, Dillon's vision has Google Glass making a weird sort of "in-app purchase" device. Whether it's in production, consumption, or monetization, Google Glass is getting loads of attention in the porn world. Is there enough promise in such a small device to revitalize an entire industry? Lets us know in the comments! Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »

:Danielle Strle joined Tumblr in January 2011 as a designer. (She signs her emails cleverly, ":D") The Pratt graduate is a member of Tumblr's community team, where she focuses on keeping existing users happy and handling the exploding number people flocking to the site. Her days probably aren't like yours. They involve cats, burgers, and beer. Also: meetings, brainstorming, and a flying plastic elephant. And, of course, checking her Tumblr dashboard. Frequently. A few months after she joined Tumblr, :D photographed her gig on her blog. All in all, not a bad life.This is Danielle. Here's what a day in the life a Tumblr employee is like. Everyone knows that the Tumblr community loves cats. I am no exception, and I get in some quality time with my kitten Wallace before hitting the subway for Tumblr HQ. Emma's Dilemma is my go-to spot for coffee in the morning. I like this place because you pour your own coffee and it sounds like a tumblr username. They also have delicious bagels. See the rest of the story at Business Insider Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.

Grand St. might just be the hippest, most exclusive New York startup we've ever seen. It's a curated, super-thoughtful, new gadget flash-sale site that's currently waiting-list-only for new customers — and it just closed a $1.3 million investment round. The boutique offers new products to members every other day. But, if you want to grab a product you have to move fast, the goods are only sold over the course of a week. Imagine the Wirecutter hooked up with Gdgt, while Gilt watched, you'd have Grand St. (If you don't know what any of those sites are you should check them out, but still, keep reading.) Grand St.'s products have included the MindWave Mobile (a headset that lets you control a toy helicopter just by thinking), unique high-tech watches like the Nooka, the Lapka, a set of environmental smart sensors that let you measure how organic your apple is, and a handful of break-out Kickstarter products. Grand St. was started by three young, ambitious, and focused individuals. Joe Lallouz and Aaron Henshaw, both co-founders and application engineers; and Y-Combinator alum Amanda Peyton, who is the CEO. The trio has since expanded its operation bringing on four other staff who all keep the young but well-oiled gadget machine running. Grand St. isn't just bridging the gap between the average consumer and the latest tech, its also, "creating an outlet that is educational for the everyday consumer," Lallouz says. Grand St. is unique in that it tests each gadget it sells, the length of time varies by product but can sometimes last weeks. The curation process is also rigorous but Grand St.'s merchant partners are delighted with the site because the start-up can convey the gadgets capabilities sometimes even better than the people who made it. The gadget lovers initially imagined creating something like Jarvis, the futuristic butler in the popular Iron Man, films but the feat proved a little too ambitious. "We started talking to a lot of our friends who worked in hardware, and essentially realized that we'd need tens of millions of dollars to really make [Jarvis] a reality," Peyton says. Instead of venturing into a hardware start up, the three decided to sell the best hardware they could get their hands on, and Grand St. was born. Lallouz further explains Grand St.'s vision: ...the tech-obsessed and geekier, individuals are still involved and very active in our community, but for them [Grand St.] is more or less about discovering new things. Which is great, they can go to one place where they can discover all these new things. But we're also about educating the mainstream consumers. We're both filling the void where traditional brick and mortar stores that exist now are falling flat, as well as helping the producers and makers do a better job creating editorial content, and creating photos and videos and consumable media. Although still in a invitation-only beta mode, Grand St.'s data suggests its user base is very diverse, "it's not only geeky people, audiophiles or the bike-obsessed...the factor that really brings people in and ties the audience together is people who are interested in new technology presented in a digestible and understandable way," Peyton said. You may be wondering how Grand St.'s business model works and how it makes money, "we envision a liquid inventory model where we buy a certain number of products and sell through them. If we see that we're selling a lot of a particular item we'll place a second order. We take a traditional retail margin on the products," Peyton explains. "We buy directly from the manufacturer." Grand St. is planning on opening up the site to everyone this summer, "for us, the whole invite-only period was really about testing a couple assumptions about our business model and how we wanted it to work. It also allowed us to test copy, and making sure the experience is great for our consumers. We want to make sure we have enough inventory, we want to make sure people don't come to