Tech

Nearly 70% of Americans are worried they'll be hacked. Just 18% are afraid of being murdered

Americans are more worried that their credit card information will be stolen by hackers than they are about being murdered, sexually assaulted or having their home targeted by a burglar, according to a Gallup poll released this week.

Sixty-nine percent of Americans said they frequently or occasionally worry about having credit card information they use in stores stolen by computer hackers, making hacking by far the most feared crime in the United States, according to the poll. The second-ranking crime that Americans worry about is having their computer or smartphone hacked, with 62% of Americans occasionally or frequently worried about such a breach.

By comparison, 45% of Americans are worried about their homes being burglarized, 28% about being the victim of terrorism and 18% are worried about getting murdered.

Target, Home Depot and Neiman Marcus have all reported massive hacks in the past year, affecting many millions of customers. Fully one quarter of Americans say they or someone in their household has had information from a credit card used at a store stolen by computer hackers during the last year.

The NGP from Incipio is the best bet to protect your shiny new iPhone 6

This post was done in partnership with The Wirecutter, a list of the best technology to buy. Read the full article below at TheWirecutter.com

After surveying almost 1,000 Wirecutter readers and testing 60 iPhone 6 cases over a period of about 30 hours (so far), our current pick for the best all-around case is the NGP from Incipio. The NGP has protected several generations of iPhones (and many other devices) and has a reputation for providing solid protection and a good fit. It’s slim enough to not detract from the iPhone 6’s svelte dimensions, while still offering comprehensive protection for the handset’s body, including its buttons. Openings along the bottom allow for compatibility with a wide range of accessories.

How we decided

Truth is, there are plenty of good iPhone cases out there. A bad case is actually a pretty rare thing. But in looking for a few cases that work for most people, we sought out a case that can adequately protect your phone without adding too much bulk or unnecessary embellishments while doing so. Apple sets forth very specific guidelines for case developers. The main thesis: “A well-designed case will securely house an Apple device while not interfering with the device’s operation.” It goes into much deeper specifics.

A respectable degree of shock absorption is important, as is a tight fit. The case should cover as much of the iPhone’s body as possible, including a raised lip around the glass display to keep it from laying flat on a surface. The best cases offer button protection with great tactility, mimicking or in some instances even enhancing what you’d feel with a bare iPhone. Based on these criteria, plastic shells are automatically out of the picture.

Our pick

Incipio’s $20 NGP is the best iPhone 6 case for most people because it offers full body protection from drops and scuffs while adding minimal bulk. Including the protective lip around the screen, the case adds a little more than 2mm to the total depth of the handset, which is about half the extra thickness of our previous pick, the CandyShell. While those with butterfingers may benefit from the extra protection of the CandyShell’s dual-layer design, the NGP’s slimmer but still shock-absorbent design offers the best compromise between protection and aesthetics.

The NGP is made out of a single piece of flexible polymer material that the company calls Flex2O. This sounds fancy, but it’s really just a variant of standard thermoplastic polyurethane, which you may know as TPU. But there are a lot of TPU cases that can be had for half as much as the NGP, so why pay extra? It comes down to the little things, like fit, button feel and quality control.

As with all good cases, port openings are properly aligned, and the button protection doesn’t dampen the clicking sensation. Buttons depress readily without requiring noticeably more pressure. This is important because even a little unpleasantness adds up to a lot of annoyance when repeated dozens of times daily.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

There are only two small issues with the NGP case. The first is the height of the lip. At 0.6mm tall, it falls below the 1mm threshold Apple recommends in its case developer guide. We feel it’s large enough to still adequately protect the screen.

The other issue is a trifle. There’s a black ring around the camera opening, which is meant to help prevent color issues when the flash is used. On our review unit, the paint is slightly uneven. It’s not so bad that it’ll have an effect on pictures, but perfectionists may notice the uneven paint job.

Other great cases

If you’re the type of person who’s always cashing in on AppleCare, we suggest something with more protection, like Speck’s CandyShell ($35), our previous top pick. The two layers of material — plastic on the outside, rubber on the inside — offer more protection than cases that are just one or the other. It’s 10.9mm thick, which puts it on the chunky side, but it doesn’t feel as thick as it is. It’s also one of the only cases we tested that meets military drop test standards. There’s a wide range of colors available, and variants add rubbery grips (CandyShell Grip), credit card holders (CandyShell Card), or graphic prints (CandyShell Inked).

If you’re trying to replace your wallet, we recommend CM4’s Q Card Case ($40). Without any cards in it, this case is only about a millimeter thicker than the standard CandyShell. The body is sturdy rubber, and it fits securely while protruding to form a 0.8mm lip. On the back, there’s a faux leather pocket that can hold up to three cards, plus some cash. With Apple Pay activated, carrying so few cards is becoming even more viable for most people, making this case more practical than it would’ve been in the past.

In closing

There are a lot of good choices when it comes to the early batch of iPhone 6 cases, but the best pick is the NGP. Very protective without sacrificing aesthetics, it’s going to be the case to beat going forward. We’ll continue to test it over the long term and see how it fares as newer cases are released.

This guide may have been updated. To see the current recommendation please go to The Wirecutter.com.

Read next: 50 Best iPhone Apps, 2014 Edition

No one expected the game maker to turn a profit this quarter

Nintendo’s latest earnings report surprised everybody. On Oct. 28, the struggling Japanese games maker said its net profit was $224 million from July to September. Most analysts had expected the company to post earnings nearly four times less, according to the Wall Street Journal. The stunning earnings also helped the game maker recover from a nearly $75 million loss last year.

Here’s why Nintendo is beating everyone’s expectations:

Gamers worldwide still love Super Smash Bros.

Nintendo said Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, which was released in Japan and began overseas shipping in Sept., has already logged 3.22 million units in sales globally.

Nintendo’s life simulator game has become a hit overseas.

Sales of Tomodachi Life, a life simulation game, marked 1.27 million units in worldwide sales this fiscal year. The popularity of the 3DS-only game, along with that of Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, also helped boost sales of the handheld console.

The Mario Kart franchise isn’t hitting the brakes.

Mario Kart 8, the latest racing game in the series supported by Wii U, has displayed steady sales even though it was released in May.

A spinoff of The Legend of Zelda is reigniting old flames.

Nintendo’s new video game Hyrule Warriors is gaining popularity with global audiences who are getting a second chance to play with legendary characters Zelda, Link and Lana from the Zelda series.

The Yen is depreciating, which is working in Nintendo’s favor.

Nintendo said it logged 15.5 billion yen ($143 million) in exchange gains due to the depreciation of the yen, which was greater in recent months than it was last year.

Looking for an Android smartphone with a huge battery that just won’t quit? You may want to check out Motorola’s newest entry in its DROID line of phones, the 5.2-inch DROID Turbo. The device will be available through Verizon Wireless starting on Thursday, October 30.

The most compelling feature of the DROID Turbo is easily its huge 3900-mAh battery. It promises to last a full 48 hours of mixed use on a single charge – approximately double the life of the Apple iPhone 6 Plus. And when time is a factor, you’ll be glad to know the DROID Turbo charges quick: You can get up to eight hours of power out of a brief 15-minute charge when you use the included Motorola Turbo Charger.

The DROID Turbo’s other features are no slouches, either: A 2.7GHz quad-core Snapdragon 805 processor powers the phone, the same chip found in the powerful Google Nexus 6 (also by Motorola). The 5.2-inch Gorilla Glass screen, meanwhile, delivers stunning 565 pixels-per-inch quad-HD resolution, perfect for watching the 4K video shot from the Turbo’s 21-megapixel camera. And lest you wonder, yes, the DROID Turbo comes pre-loaded with Android 4.4.4 KitKat, the latest build of Google’s mobile operating system.

The DROID Turbo will be available with 32 gigabytes of storage in your choice of Metallic Black, Metallic Red and Ballistic Nylon colors for $199 with a new two-year Verizon contract. A 64-gigabyte version will be available in Ballistic Nylon only at a price of $249 with a two-year contract. To learn more about the new DROID Turbo smartphone, visit the Motorola blog.

This article was written by Fox Van Allen and originally appeared on Techlicious.

More from Techlicious:

• FTC Suing AT&T over Unlimited Data Throttling
• FEC Fails to Plug Online Ad Loophole
• When the Device You Use Determines the Price You Get
• 4 Ways You’re Using Your Tech Completely Wrong
• MyLife Launches MessageHub App to Simplify Conversations

Russian hackers suspected

Hackers believed to be employed by the Russian government breached White House computer networks in recent weeks, temporarily disrupting services.

Citing unnamed sources, the Washington Post reported there was no evidence that hackers had breached classified networks or that any of the systems were damaged. Intranet or VPN access was shut off for a period but the email system was never downed. The breach was discovered two to three weeks ago, after U.S. officials were alerted to it by an unnamed ally.

“On a regular basis, there are bad actors out there who are attempting to achieve intrusions into our system,” a White House official told the Post. “This is a constant battle for the government and our sensitive government computer systems, so it’s always a concern for us that individuals are trying to compromise systems and get access to our networks.”

Cybersecurity firms in recent weeks have identified NATO, the Ukrainian government and U.S. defense contractors as targets of Russian hackers thought to be working for the government.

[The Washington Post]

The former dictator of Panama sought damages for a character based on him

A California judge Tuesday threw out a lawsuit filed by former dictator Manual Noriega against a video game he claimed depicted him in a bad light.

Manuel Noriega, who ruled Panama for most of the 1980s, sought charges in July against video game publisher Activision, for creating a character based on him without permission in Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Wall Street Journal reported. Noriega said the 2012 shooter game unlawfully depicted him “as a kidnapper, murderer and enemy of the state,” according to court documents.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William H. Fahey tossed the lawsuit on grounds that Noriega’s likeness was sufficiently “transformative”–meaning that its use was adopted for the sake of commentary or expression. Fahey also argued that the video game did not benefit from Noriega’s inclusion, as the former soldier and convicted drug trafficker had argued.

“The Court concludes that the marketability and economic value of the challenged work in this case comes not from Noriega, but from the creativity, skill and reputation of defendants,” Fahey wrote in court documents.

The dismissal was supported by former NYC major and Activision co-counsel Rudy Giuliani, who called Noriega’s claims “audacious,” as it touches on the issue of the many other video games and works of art that draw from and freely interpret historical or political figures.

“This ruling is an important victory and we thank the court for protecting free speech,” said Rudy Giuliani. “This was an absurd lawsuit from the very beginning and we’re gratified that in the end, a notorious criminal didn’t win. This is not just a win for the makers of Call of Duty, but is a victory for works of art across the entertainment and publishing industries throughout the world.”

There are a whole lot of Facebook addicts out there

Facebook put up a lot of impressive numbers in its third quarter earnings report Tuesday: 1.35 billion monthly active users, $3.2 billion in revenue, $800 million in profit. But the number that may be most surprising is one that rarely gets harped on in the media: 864 million daily active users.

This figure is the true metric driving the company’s runaway growth. To make money, Facebook needs to serve you ads—lots of ads—as you peruse its site. Obviously these daily users are soaking up a lot more ads than people who just check in once a month. Perhaps more importantly, the figure shows that Facebook is able to maintain its hold on users’ attention even as it stuffs more features (like auto-playing videos) and ads onto its site. In fact, the percentage of daily active users in the quarter, out of the total number of monthly active users, was 63%, up from about 59% in the previous quarter.

This impressive retention rate helps explain why Facebook has said it will take on additional expenses in the future to expand staff and pursue more acquisitions—the company believes it knows what is users want, and it seemingly has the stats to back up the claim.

The social media titans are having very different weeks

Another quarter, another chance for Facebook to easily beat Wall Street’s expectations. The world’s largest social network now has 1.35 billion monthly active users, and it generated $3.2 billion in revenue and more than $800 million in profit from them in the third quarter. Facebook’s woes trying adapt its business to mobile now seem like a distant memory, as mobile now makes up two-thirds of the company’s ad revenue. (Despite this success, Facebook’s stock is down more than 10% in after-hours trading after the company said it expects expenses for the year to outpace initial forecasts, though it remains to be seen how the stock will behave after investors have had a night to process the news.)

Twitter, Facebook’s most direct competitor, is having a very different week. The company’s stock plunged 10% after it released its quarterly earnings report Monday, not because of the company’s paltry profits—investors don’t expect the social network to make much money in the near term—but rather because Twitter increasingly looks like it won’t be able to approach anything near Facebook’s scale. Twitter added 13 million monthly active users during the quarter, for a total of 284 million. Facebook added about 30 million, and it will probably continue to increase the gap for the foreseeable future.

There are several reasons Twitter’s user and financial growth is trailing Facebook’s. For one, Facebook’s users are much, much more engaged with their social network than Twitter’s. Less than half of Twitter’s users visit the site daily in its top 20 markets, compared to 63% for Facebook globally. The number of timeline views each Twitter user sees also decreased during the quarter, both year-over-year and compared to the second quarter. Twitter just has not proven itself to be a necessity in its users’ lives to the same extent Facebook has.

As a business, Twitter also lacks Facebook’s monetization opportunities. Twitter ads mostly hew to the typical 140-character format, though some have images. Facebook, meanwhile, successfully managed to make auto-playing video a staple in users’ News Feeds this year and is slowly experimenting with using the format for ads, which are sure to command a high price. More broadly, Facebook says its ads can be highly targeted because its users disclose their true identities and countless data points about their lifestyles and preferences. Twitter’s view of its mostly anonymous users is relatively opaque by comparison.

But perhaps the biggest thing separating the two companies is the way they’re run. Facebook will gleefully shove any changes down users’ throats and force them to adapt. The initial introduction (and constant revamping) of the News Feed, the ratcheting down of the organic reach of Page posts and the ongoing tweaks to its privacy policy are good examples. If any of these moves have bred resentment toward the company (Facebook has previously found a spot on lists of the most hated companies in America), it has not hurt business or even broad user engagement.

Twitter, meanwhile, has seen relatively few changes to its core interface since it launched. Sure, Twitter.com got a much-needed overhaul in 2011 and earlier this year profile pages were retooled to resemble Facebook’s Timeline pages, but the core Twitter experience has basically remained untouched. It’s a barrage of super-short messages presented in chronological order, sometimes organized by a set of commands so obtuse they require a glossary — though Twitter is experimenting with showing users tweets from accounts they don’t necessarily follow.

That simply may not be enough to entice the average Internet user. CEO Dick Costolo said Monday that the social network must increase “its overall pace of execution” in introducing new features that make the site more understandable to laymen. But unless they’re willing to rethink the service from the ground up, it’s not clear any amount of tinkering will allow Twitter to achieve his stated goal: building the “largest daily audience in the world.”