Tech

Devices on planes said to simulate cell towers and trick phones into reporting data

The Justice Department is using equipment on board aircraft that simulates cell towers to collect data from criminal suspects’ cellphones, according to a report Thursday.

Citing “people familiar with the operations,” the Wall Street Journal reports that a program operating under the U.S. Marshals Service is said to use small aircraft flying from five different airports around the country. Devices aboard those planes called “dirtboxes” essentially trick the suspects’ cellphones into thinking they’re connecting to legitimate cell towers from big wireless carriers like Verizon or AT&T, allowing the feds to scoop up personal data and location information about those targeted.

However, the report details those devices could be gathering data from “tens of thousands” of Americans in a single flight, meaning non-suspects are likely to be included in the data roundup. The new report could shed some light on earlier reports of mysterious “phony” cell towers that security researchers have found around the country.

Read more at the Wall Street Journal

Will give Uber for Business some competition

Ride-sharing company Lyft announced the launch of a commuting service Thursday, bringing some new competition to Uber in the employee-travel market.

Lyft for Work allows employers to purchase and issue credits to employees each month, which they can dip into for commuting to the office or traveling to and from certain company events. In July, Uber launched Uber for Business, which allows multiple employees to use a company credit card for billing their work-related car rides, rather than each using individual company cards (or their own and then seeking reimbursement).

The two companies are positioning their employee-centric programs as different types of solutions. Lyft touts Lyft for Work as a social good more than a way to streamline tedious expense accounting. “Across the country, nearly 80% of workers drive to work alone. Imagine if that 80% filled the seats in their empty cars through Lyft,” the company said in their press release announcing the service. “We could eliminate rush hour congestion, drastically reduce travel time and make the commute more enjoyable.”

Uber, on the other hand, bills their service up front as “uncomplicating [sic] business travel for your entire company.” In October, the company claimed that businesses opting for employees to use the lower-priced UberX (rather than cabs or limos) may be saving around $1,000 per employee.

When asked how the new service differs from Uber’s offering, Lyft spokesperson Paige Thelen says it’s more customizable. Employers can set up their workers’ accounts so that funds can be used only to and from preapproved addresses. If a worker takes a Lyft to the office, for example, the app can detect the drop-off point and automatically apply the commuting credits rather than the user’s personal credit card.

Employees can also be left to manually apply the credits, just as Uber for Business users simply toggle to the company credit card as their billing option. Uber emphasizes that using “U4B” gives administrators oversight by cataloging trips and is integrated with an expense management tool, taking another step out of the expensing process for companies who use it.

The two companies—which at their heart share the mission of making local transportation easier—already have several competing services, including a pair rolled out within a day of each other. Lyft Plus is a fancier, more expensive option than a standard ride, which competes with Uber’s signature black car service. UberX is a lower-cost, less formal option that is more on par with the average Lyft, a ride in a non-professional’s personal car. This August, Uber and Lyft both announced new carpooling options, Lyft Line and Uber Pool, cheaper rides available to passengers who are willing to share their vehicle with other travelers going in the same direction.

Uber for Business and Lyft for Work may share a grammatical construction but, as pundits have noted, it’s not necessarily easy to say who really had an idea first. Perhaps with allegations of mimicry in mind, Lyft pointed out in their press release that this type of service has been in line with the company’s mission since it was called Zimride, a precursor to Lyft that was founded before Uber. “From the earliest days, Zimride’s platform was powered through partnerships with companies and college campuses where individuals shared common starting points or destinations,” the company wrote in their release.

“It’s going back to our initial vision,” Lyft spokesperson Paige Thelen says of the new service, “to fill the empty seats in our cars and on our roads.”

Lyft also announced partnerships with 29 companies in place before the launch, including headliners like Adobe and Yelp. In October, Uber announced that “thousands” of small to mid-sized businesses signed up within the first three months.

Neither side seemed to benefit from the fight

NEW YORK — One of publishing’s nastiest, most high-profile conflicts, the months-long standoff between Amazon.com and Hachette Book Group, is ending.

Amazon and Hachette announced a multi-year agreement Thursday.

With e-book revenues reportedly the key issue, Amazon had removed pre-order tags for Hachette books, reduced discounts and slowed deliveries.

Neither side seemed to benefit. Hachette sales on Amazon.com, the country’s biggest bookseller, had dropped sharply. Amazon, meanwhile, issued a disappointing earnings report last month, although the impact of the Hachette dispute was unclear.

Hachette’s authors include James Patterson and Donna Tartt. It was among five publishers sued in 2012 by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly fixing e-book prices. The publishers settled and were required to negotiate new deals with Amazon and other retailers.

Having seconds this Thanksgiving? Try these tech-fueled fitness tips first.

Once upon a time, mashed potatoes were stick-to-your-ribs food. Nowadays, they just pile on your waist. Still, come Turkey Day, there’s no way you’ll be able to resist an extra helping, and with today’s fitness trackers, you won’t have to.

Helping people to quantify their activity and catalog their calories, the latest smart health gear doesn’t just serve up heaping spoonfuls of data, they also give you new inspiring ways to get healthy. Catapult from the couch to the gym — after your post Thanksgiving dinner nap, of course — with these six gadget-driven fitness tricks:

Stop Sucking Wind

If you’ve ever laced up and hit the pavement only to suck wind — hard — Adidas Fit Smart will help you to slow down and build your respiratory and cardio skills back up gradually. Using a color-based heart rate display that shows users how hard they’re exerting themselves (blue is resting, green is active, orange and red are pushing it), the $199 wristwatch also syncs with expertly organized fitness plans via Adidas’s MiCoach system.

Of course, when it comes to fitness trackers, people tend to overlook Adidas, but through MiCoach, they have been in the game longer than almost anyone, and their platform is full of training regimens for runners whether they are just aspirational or already highly competitive.

Comfort is Key

The biggest problem for people who use fitness trackers is finding the motivation to wear one all the time. Sure, the bigger the gadget (and the more of them) the better the data, but sometimes having the freedom to move is all about feeling free when you actually do move. Women, burdened with chest-strangling sports bras, have it worse than men — unless they don a Sensoria Fitness Sports Bra.

This $149 combination heart-rate monitor and support garment embeds textile sensors into its light, moisture-wicking fabric. The no-fuss sensor is a natural fit on the chest, and with low-energy Bluetooth technology connecting it to your smartphone, it will last up to eight months before the battery needs to be replaced. In addition, the heart rate monitor is compatible with Strava, Runkeeper, and MapMyRun, top fitness-tracking apps for your smartphone.

Get Fighter Pilot Fit

Exercise can feel like drudgery, but instead of thinking of yourself as a slob, imagine yourself as an elite athlete — after all, that’s how athletic companies think of you. For instance, Nike may have developed sneakers for Michael Jordan, but they made a lot more money selling them to aspiring ballers like yourself. So next time you suit up, give yourself some credit. Lifebeam Hat actually packs technology that has helped track fighter pilots’ vitals mid-flight. A lightweight, breathable $99 running hat, it has sensors that measure heart rate, steps, and calories burned, sending this data along to ANT+ equipped devices or to smartphones via an embedded, low-energy Bluetooth chip. And if you’d rather ride than run, Lifebeam has a bicycle helmet version, too.

Watch Your Waist, Not Your Wallet

Gym memberships are only guaranteed to make your wallet slimmer, and they could fail at helping you lose weight. And though expensive, touchscreen, heart rate-monitoring trackers are currently all the rage, they also offer that same empty promise. Meanwhile, inexpensive activity monitors like the Misfit Flash take much less investment and can offer the same immense upside.

Discrete, waterproof, and versatile, the $49-for-pre-order, disc-shaped device can be worn on the wrist, belt, or even around the neck to monitor steps, calories burned, distance covered, and sleep quality. It’s always on and has a battery that lasts up to six months, syncing to your smartphone via low energy Bluetooth. But at that low a price, Flash lacks something that other, more expensive trackers bring to the table — the guilt over how much you spent on it.

Listen to Your Heart

According to a 2014 study by the National Strength and Conditioning Association, music can help joggers shut out the world, run faster, bounce back more quickly, and heck, even enjoy themselves more. It’s all very technical, but then again you probably knew all that already — because who doesn’t enjoy working out to their favorite jams? If you want to recreate the science for yourself, pop on the LG Heart Rate Monitor Earphone. As the name implies, the $179 headphones can catch your pulse while pumping out your favorite music, beaming everything back and forth to your smartphone via Bluetooth. In addition, with a workout voice guide and a playback control remote, you can skip all the mellow stuff when it tells you how slow you’re going, and crank up the volume on your power tracks to give yourself — and your research — a little extra kick.

Make Fitness An Always-On Activity

If you haven’t said it yourself already, be assured that experts are screaming it from the rooftops: desk jobs are killing us. Whether it’s doing laps around the office or taking walks around the neighborhood, everyone needs to insert some more movement into their day and to make fitness an ongoing effort. The discrete and comfortable Garmin VivoSmart can keep you moving by counting steps, measuring other health metrics like heart rate and calories burned and helping you reach your daily goals. Like smartwatches, the slim, $169 band has an OLED display that can display notifications from your Bluetooth-synced smartphone, letting you see everything from who’s calling to the content of your text messages. But most importantly, it gives you periodic reminders to get up and stretch your legs, even vibrating on your wrist to jostle you out of your seat.

Ballmer wants to make Harvard's computer science department the best in the world

Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has given Harvard University an unknown amount of money to significantly expand the school’s computer science department, it was announced Thursday.

Ballmer, now owner of the NBA’s L.A. Clippers, graduated from Harvard College in 1977. He said in a statement that Harvard’s computer science department is “small, but excellent,” and believes a faculty expansion will allow the university to build a preeminent program. Harvard President Drew Faust said in a statement that “we’re so grateful for Steve’s game-changing support and welcome this opportunity for the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences to take full advantage of the entire University’s distributed strengths.”

While Harvard nor Ballmer disclosed the exact amount of the gift, Ballmer told The New York Times that it would allow Harvard’s computer science faculty to expand from its current number of 24 to about 35.

Though Harvard is top-ranked as a national university, its computer science program is ranked at number 18, behind programs at Carnegie Mellon, MIT, Stanford and UC Berkeley, which are tied for the top spot, according to U.S. News & World Report. Still, Harvard undergraduates have demonstrated a rising interest in computer science, with the number of students concentrating in the field more than doubling between 2009 and 2013, according to the university’s handbook for students. A record-breaking 818 students enrolled in Harvard’s popular introductory computer science class, CS50, this semester.

A peek into the black box that is the tech giant's top strength

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from the bankruptcy of GT Advanced Technologies it’s that Apple under Tim Cook bargains just as hard as it did when Steve Jobs was alive.

“Put on your big boy pants and accept the agreement,” an Apple executive reportedly told GT when the New Hamphire-based sapphire supplier resisted what COO Daniel Squiller describes as Cupertino’s “massively one-sided” terms.

If those terms were one-sided — and when Squiller spells them out they certainly look that way — it’s not just because Apple is big and GT small.

Apple’s strength at the bargaining table — its leverage — comes from a deeper place. It was evident in 2003, when a smaller and much weaker Apple talked the five major record labels into selling music a la carte on iTunes for $0.99 a song. As Stratechery‘s Ben Thompson explained last week:

It turned out Apple had [an] ace in the hole: a customer base that, while small, had an outsized willingness and ability to spend. After all, they had already dropped at least $1,500 on a Mac and iPod (and likely a lot more), what was an extra $0.99? At a more basic level, said customers were loyal to Apple not because it made sense from a feature or price perspective, but simply because they loved and valued the experience of using Apple products. That, ultimately, was the key to Apple’s favorable position: they had the best customers because they had the best user experience; if the labels wanted access to them, they had to agree to Apple’s terms.”

Thompson’s article is a brilliant companion piece to Squiller’s bitter declaration. Both open up a black box that Apple works hard to keep locked.

For the rest of the article, please go to Fortune.com.

Facebook also launched an interactive privacy settings explainer

Facebook unveiled a drastically simplified privacy policy Thursday that explains in plain English who can see your personal information shared through the social network.

The streamlined policy strips out more than two-thirds of the verbiage from the previous policy, which consumer advocates had previously criticized as unnecessarily long and byzantine. “Our hope is that it won’t take long for people to read through this and really get it,” Facebook’s chief privacy officer told the Wall Street Journal.

Facebook also launched an interactive walkthrough of its privacy settings, called “Privacy Basics,” which guides users through drop down menus with options that can restrict viewing rights or delete posts entirely.

The update marks the company’s latest bid to make its privacy settings more user friendly since the company in 2011 settled Federal Trade Commission accusations that it broke its privacy promises. In September, Facebook launched a “Privacy Checkup” in an attempt to give users a greater measure of control over their data.

But if you don't have a Galaxy Note 4, it'll cost you a lot more

Samsung’s new enthusiast-aimed virtual reality headset will cost $200, setting an ambitious price point for the device ahead of its release next month.

The Samsung Gear VR Innovator Edition, slated for December release, has a slot to hold the Samsung Galaxy Note 4, which serves as the device’s display. Slide the Samsung smartphone into the Gear headset, and the headset’s lenses stretch and magnify the phone’s flat screen across a wide field of view, making the wearer feel like they’re in an immersive environment.

The headset will cost $200, and $249 when bundled with a Bluetooth gamepad, Samsung virtual reality partner Oculus VR said in a blog post Wednesday. But for users who don’t have a Galaxy Note 4 smartphone already and have to buy one, the total cost to experience virtual reality with the Gear VR will be at least $300 to $800 more expensive.

The Gear VR Innovator Edition isn’t a fully-fledged consumer product — instead, it’s a stepping stone device aimed at developers and other virtual reality enthusiasts so they can design software for a consumer-grade model that will be released later. It’s unclear if the consumer version of the VR will come at a different price point, but $200 would make the Gear VR a full $150 cheaper than Oculus VR’s current non-Samsung device.

The virtual reality company Oculus VR was bought by Facebook in a $2 billion deal that closed over the summer. The Gear VR, a partnership with Samsung, was first announced in September.

Oculus also announced Wednesday that users can now download the Oculus Mobile SDK, a software system that developers can use to make apps, games and other functions for the Gear VR.

PlayStation Vue is a combination of cable TV, Netflix and Hulu Plus

Sony on Thursday unveiled the PlayStation Vue, a new cloud-based TV service that combines live shows and on-demand content for delivery over Sony’s PlayStation gaming consoles.

The PlayStation Vue will also make popular new episodes available three days past their original air date so users don’t have to schedule recording, Sony said. A user interface additionally offers “unprecedented personalization and simplicity,” while keeping viewers connected to what’s popular or trending, Sony wrote in a press release announcing the new service.

“Everyday TV is about to become extraordinary with our new cloud-based TV service, PlayStation Vue,” said Andrew House, President and Group CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment, in that release.

Sony also aims to disrupt traditional subscription TV payment models by offering PlayStation Vue on a month-to-month plan with no cancellation fee. There are no equipment or installation fees if users already have broadband Internet and a PlayStation 3 or PlayStation 4 console.

The PlayStation Vue will be available for invite-only beta preview during November for select PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 owners in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles, Sony said. The beta preview will then roll-out on other Sony and non-Sony devices, including Apple’s iPad tablets.

PlayStation Vue’s commercial launch is scheduled for the first quarter of 2015. Pricing has not yet been announced.