Toyota's Mirai Aims to Kick Fuel-Cell Tech Into High Gear

Toyota on Monday officially unveiled its fuel cell sedan in an Internet video featuring Toyota Motor Corporation's president and CEO Akio Toyoda. The announcement comes in advance of the Los Angeles Auto Show Nov. 21-30.

The new sedan, dubbed "Mirai" -- which means "future" in Japanese -- can travel up to 300 miles on a single tank of hydrogen, refuel in less than five minutes, and emit only water vapor.

To ensure that its drivers actually can fuel up, Toyota announced that it will collaborate with Air Liquide to develop and supply a phased network of 12 new hydrogen fueling stations in five states in the northeast corridor.

"Toyota's vision of a hydrogen society is not just about building a great car, but ensuring accessible, reliable and convenient refueling for our customers," said Toyota North America Chief Executive Officer Jim Lentz. "I am happy to announce that this vision will expand beyond the borders of California and give customers the opportunity to join the fuel cell movement."

Through this partnership, the 12 fueling stations will be placed strategically throughout the greater New York and Boston areas, in an effort to blanket New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

The Next Prius?

Toyota has been in the driver's seat of the alternative fuel movement in the past, notably with the Prius, which it first introduced in 1997. Just as that car helped pave the way for early gas-electric hybrid automobiles, the Mirai could influence development of fuel-cell vehicles.

"It is another attempt by Toyota to weave a blanket to cover alternatives to fossil fuels," said Justin Cupler, editor in chief of TopSpeed.com.

"Along with the hybrid and electric-powered vehicles, this is another option," he told TechNewsWorld.

"There are many benefits that are both tangible and intangible," noted Phil Gott, senior director of long range planning at IHS Automotive.

"For Toyota, they get credits to offset the emissions from other vehicles," he pointed out.

"They also get kudos and bragging rights, and in people's minds they are affirming their leadership that they got with the Prius," Gott told TechNewsWorld. "Of course, they also get the marketing buzz of being among the first to bring a fuel cell vehicle to market."

The Cost of Driving

While Toyota did not announce the American sticker price of the Mirai, its price in Japan is the equivalent of nearly US$70,000.

However, the target price for the American market could be closer to $50,000, based on some reports. That still could be viewed as a lot of money for a car that is just past the prototype stage.

"The initial cost is going to be an issue, so that could be a big deterrent," said Cupler. "It isn't entirely clear if the car or even its technology will ever take off."

However, Toyota does "intend to produce a large number of these vehicles for the American market," added Gott. "The challenge is [not only] the cost, but also the availability of the refueling stations.

"For this car to be reliable, the customer needs to be close to the hydrogen refueling station," he pointed out. "Right now, those are far and few between."

Clean Energy or Not?

Toyota has been addressing the issue by helping to build out the fuel cell refueling station infrastructure. At present, its new "car of the future" can't make a cross-country trek, but earlier this year the company announced a $7.3 million loan to FirstElement Fuels to support operations and maintenance of 18 stations in California.

With the announcement of the stations in the northeast corridor, the infrastructure is beginning to come together, but another issue still may need to be addressed for fuel cell vehicles to be truly successful in reducing carbon emissions.

"Where does the energy that produces the hydrogen come from?" pondered Gott. "While we can produce electricity -- which is used to make the hydrogen -- from sun and wind, most electricity still comes from coal.

"That electricity from the sun could be used to power a home or an office," he added.

"Instead of supporting clean energy, this technology is now adding a load on that sector and reduces the ability to use the solar energy to offset the demand from a coal plant," Gott argued.

"In other words, the newest sources that require electricity should be attributed to the dirtiest sources of power -- so that means that the hydrogen footprint of these cars is actually dirtier than a car running on gasoline," he maintained.

"We need to be realistic when we call these 'clean energy vehicles' and really need to look at this from well to wheel," Gott said, and understand "where the energy for the hydrogen is coming from."

WhatsApp Battens Down the Hatches

WhatsApp has added end-to-end encryption and enabled it by default in the latest version of its Android messaging application, partner Open Whisper Systems announced Tuesday.

The new feature taps Open Whisper's open source TextSecure encryption protocol to ensure that only a conversation's participants can read the messages they exchange. WhatsApp itself won't be able to decrypt the messages, in other words, even if law enforcement should try to require it.

Encrypted messaging isn't yet available for group chat or media messages within WhatsApp's Android client, but those features are coming next, Open Whisper said, along with support for more client platforms. Key-verification options also will be forthcoming once protocol integrations are completed.

A Rare Quality

Facebook-owned WhatsApp is one of several messaging applications called out in a recent scorecard report from the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The EFF rated the security of more than three dozen such apps on seven different dimensions, including encryption. Also taken into consideration was whether or not the apps' code was audited and open to independent review.

Only six tools scored all seven stars, including ChatSecure, CryptoCat, Signal/Redphone, Silent Phone, Silent Text and Open Whisper's TextSecure app.

WhatsApp, on the other hand, was among those whose lack of end-to-end encryption resulted in a lower ranking. Included in that category were Google, Facebook and Apple's email products, along with Yahoo's Web and mobile chat and Secret.

Lacking encryption altogether were messaging platforms QQ, Mxit and the desktop version of Yahoo Messenger, the EFF found.

One Fell Swoop

"I think it's great news," said Joseph Bonneau, a fellow at both the EFF and Princeton University's Center for Information Technology Policy.

"One of the things we were hoping with the scorecard project is that we'd be able to push others to do the same thing," he told TechNewsWorld.

This one change "basically absolved them from being one of the apps that didn't really provide much security to being one of the most secure mainstream messaging apps out there," Bonneau said.

The Open Source Advantage

WhatsApp's choice of TextSecure was a good one, noted Bonneau.

"TextSecure has really been refined over the years," he said. "It's great to see them using a public application that has earned a lot of confidence and has a lot of strong security features."

The fact that TextSecure is open source is a particularly compelling advantage, Bonneau pointed out. "In practice, it means that any weaknesses are far more likely to be found and fixed. Open source is the way to go."

Billions of Encrypted Messages

Open Whisper Systems has been working with WhatsApp for the past half year or so to implement the new feature in what it called the largest deployment of end-to-end encrypted communication in history.

Billions of encrypted messages now are being exchanged each day through the enhanced service.

Users likely won't even notice that the additional security is there, however.

"It shouldn't affect the user experience at all," Bonneau remarked.

Educating Users

Of course, whether they realize it or not, the app's more than 600 million monthly active users are benefiting from the superior security the TextSecure code provides, Jean Taggart, senior security researcher at Malwarebytes, told TechNewsWorld.

"Implementing the Open Whisper Systems protocol under the hood of a popular messaging platform is a huge improvement," he said.

Looking ahead, moves like this one will begin to make it clear to users that there are "big security differences among messaging platforms," EFF's Bonneau observed. "Hopefully users will start demanding this kind of security." 

Coming soon: ''

Bosses may soon be demanding that employees get on Facebook and do some work. The social media giant is getting ready to roll out a workplace version of its site called "Facebook at Work," insiders tell the Financial Times.

The site—which will compete head-to-head with Google's and Microsoft's workplace products, as well as LinkedIn—will look and function much like Facebook's existing site, the sources say, but will include tools for people to work on things like shared documents and will allow users to keep their personal Facebook profiles completely separate from their professional ones.

The project, inspired by Facebook employees' own use of the site for work purposes, is now in an early pilot program and doesn't currently host ads, according to Mashable.

But will it catch on as the place to have workplace chats? The office version of Facebook could be a hit because it will have the "fastest learning curve ever in the history of enterprise software," writes Erika Morphy at Forbes, but with corporations fearing leaks of sensitive information, the company's "fast-and-loose approach with consumers' privacy may come back to haunt it." (Facebook is also rumored to be planning a move into health care.)

Danger comes in small packages: Securing employees' mobile devices

Whether your company provides workers with mobile devices or allows them to bring their own, you have to be vigilant. If your employees work outside the office with their tablets or smartphones, they’re walking around town with your data in small, easy-to-lose, easy-to-steal containers. Should any of those devices go missing, there’s a lot more at stake than the cost of the hardware.

Following these basic procedures will help keep your company safe from mobile threats.

Insist on mobile antivirus apps
Almost everyone knows that they need an antivirus program for their Windows PC, but few understand the necessity of running a similar tool on their mobile device. According to Symantec's Internet Security Threat Report for 2014, 57 percent of adults didn't even know that such tools existed. But here's the really scary part: Only 44 percent were equally ignorant in 2012. In other words, the average person knows less about mobile security now than they did two years ago.

Android attracts more malware than iOS by a very large margin. According to Kaspersky Lab's Mobile Cyber Threats report, published this October, "98.05% of all existing mobile malware targets the users of Android devices." The ability to download apps from sources other than the office Play Store, and the irregular way updates get pushed to devices make Android a tempting target.

But iPhone and iPad users shouldn't be complacent. iOS has its share of vulnerabilities. What's more, malware that latches onto applications doesn't really care about the operating system; if the OS can support the app, the app can support the malware.

Think data, not device
Losing a smartphone is an inconvenience. Letting the data on it fall into the wrong hands is a disaster. According to Adam Ely, Co-Founder of Bluebox Security, "79% of companies reported a mobile data breach, with the cost of data loss ranging from less than $10K to over $500K per incident." That's a lot more than the cost of a phone.

The first line of defense: Secure the mobile device with a sufficiently complex password. You might also consider other techniques for locking a phone. Add more protection by encrypting company data (a locked phone doesn't help much if the Micro SD card inside is open), and a mobile-to-company-server backup routine.

Use a Virtual Private Network
Criminals don't need to steal a smartphone to read the data flowing from that phone to the Internet.

That's why your company needs to use a VPN to encrypt the data as it journeys between the mobile device and the network. A good VPN provides more than just encrypted data. It can track who's accessing the network, authenticate users, and allow employees to access company applications in the field.

Respect your employees' privacy
If you don't handle your company's BYOD policy properly, your employees may look at you with the same lack of trust that American citizens reserve for the NSA. As Ely explained, "it is important to maintain boundaries between work and personal use on an employee’s personal device. Users are rightfully worried that their privacy will be compromised if they use their personal device for work purposes."

Your BYOD policy must spell out clearly what rights belong to the employee and the company. Prepare a clear statement that defines the circumstances in which the company will open private files. Also, the employee must understand ahead of time that the device may be wiped remotely should it be lost.

Make it easy
If a user must go through eight security steps before they can get to work, they will find a way around those steps. After all, they're being paid to be productive, not to enter multiple passwords and prove that they really are themselves. According to Ely, "No matter how robust a mobile device program is it will not succeed without the support of the end users."

So keep ease of use in mind when designing a secure system. Require fewer passwords, and use automated encryption technologies that don't require many user interactions.

Another way to simplify: Design easy-to-use systems, and help employees when the systems aren't as easy as they should be, and offer convenient options like remote access to help them get fast support from your help desk if they need it. "Support must be a priority," warns Ely. And "focus on product design to minimize issues, prioritize quality testing and populate…support portal with how-to’s and FAQs."

Going mobile has considerable risks and considerable benefits. You need to lower the first so you can make the most of the later.

Big AMD wins: Capcom embraces Mantle, Samsung plans 4K FreeSync monitor line

Graphics technology has been stuck on the 28nm manufacturing process for a full three years now, but that doesn’t mean AMD and Nvidia have been sitting on their proverbial thumbs.

The hardware giants have each been feverishly releasing game-enhancing software over the past couple of years, and at its “Future of Compute” event in Singapore this morning, AMD announced that two major partners are embracing a pair of the company’s technologies: Capcom is on board with Mantle, AMD’s performance-enhancing API technology, while Samsung announced the first 4K monitors with AMD FreeSync support.

The story behind the story: Both Mantle and FreeSync promise to provide a superior gaming experience—at least on AMD hardware—but neither technology is going unchallenged. Microsoft announced the awfully similar DirectX 12 API shortly after Mantle rolled out, while Nvidia offers a competing G-Sync technology of its own for use with GeForce cards. Wooing Capcom and Samsung to Team Red is a big win for AMD.

Oh, and both Mantle and FreeSync require recent AMD Radeon graphics cards to work—of course.

More Mantle
Capcom is working the Mantle API into Panta-Rhei, the gaming engine it originally created for use with next-gen gaming consoles. The only “details” come courtesy of this canned statement by Masaru Ijuin, technical director at Capcom:

“Capcom is evaluating AMD’s Mantle technology to help improve the graphics pipeline, and integrate it into ‘Panta-Rhei’ to provide outstanding benefits and impressive performance for gamers as well as the gaming developers.”

Yawn.

But corporate speak aside, Capcom is the latest in a string of big-name publishers to fiddle with Mantle. Two PC gaming stalwart studios, DICE (maker of Battlefield) and Crytek (Crysis and Far Cry), have pledged support for Mantle in their respective Frostbite 3 and Crytek engines. You can already find Mantle support in Battlefield 4, Thief, Sniper Elite 3, Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare, and the recently released gems Civilization: Beyond Earth and Dragon Age: Inquisition. Future games with Mantle support scheduled include Star Citizen, Star Wars: Battlefront, Mirror’s Edge 2, and Battlefield: Hardline, along with whatever Capcom’s brewing up.

Moto Hint review: Motorola is bringing sexy Bluetooth headsets back

Bluetooth headsets were never cool, and they’re still not cool, but if you have to absolutely stick something in your ear to make a phone call you should really consider the Moto Hint.

I can’t think of any other device I’ve ever loved sticking in my ear as much as the Hint—I know that sounds weird, but I go out of my way now to make phone calls so that I can use this device. Motorola is on making a comeback in smartphones, but it looks like it’s bringing back the utility of Bluetooth headsets, too. 

Talking to yourself in public is fun

I use my hands when I talk, so holding a phone up to my ear is no fun for me because then I only have one hand to wave around. With the Moto Hint in my ear, however, I have two hands free to wave around, and it makes walking down San Francisco’s Market Street that much more interesting. 

Yes, you will get stares for talking to yourself and gesturing at the air, but it wasn’t too long ago that this was actually the norm.

motohint 2 Florence Ion

The Moto Hint fits easily in your ear. Unless it doesn't.

What’s particularly nice about the Hint is that it doesn’t feel like a protruding robotic arm hanging out from your ear. Rather, it feels like a comfortable ear plug with a heaping of technology embedded inside.

My only issue with the Hint is that if it doesn’t fit in your ear at first, it never will. It didn’t fit very comfortably in my right ear because of the way my ear is shaped, but somehow it fit fine in my left ear. Also, adjusting it to fit inside your ear can be tricky, and there were several instances where I made an accidental phone call while trying to get a good fit.

Use it with the Moto X—or don’t

motohint 4 Florence Ion

The Moto Hint’s proximity detector turns it on immediately once it’s safely nestled inside your ear.

The Moto Hint works with any Bluetooth-capable smartphone—yes, even iPhones. It’s super easy to set up, too: charge it, pop it in your ear, and then the Hint will softly alert you that it’s looking for a Bluetooth-enabled device to connect to. Once it’s paired, it’ll say “Moto Hint connected” in a soft, motherly tone. I was actually a bit taken aback by how easy it was to set up and use.

The Hint is meant to work in sync with Motorola’s latest smartphones. If you own this year’s Moto X, for instance, the Hint will constantly listen for your command word just as the phone would. You can ask it to search Google, play a song, send a message, or do anything else Moto Voice enables you to do without actually having to whip out your phone. Of course, you’ll also have to trust that your phone understands you as you’re dictating a message while also trying to cross a busy city street. 

If you don’t own a Motorola smartphone, that’s fine; it will simply function as a normal Bluetooth earpiece. I used the Hint with an HTC One (M8) most of the time and it worked remarkably well. There were days where I’d use it to call my boyfriend on my walk from the office to the train station and all I had to do to get that started was touch it and ask it to place a call to him. There were other days where I used it in tandem with the Moto 360—I’d shout “OK Google” to place a call and it’d route to the Hint in my ear, with a soft alert that let me know it was doing just that.

The few times anyone had difficult hearing me was when I was in a spotty reception zone. The Hint even worked when I’d hush my voice a bit to make a comment about some weirdo standing behind me in line for the train. When the screeching finally train approached, the Hint even cancelled out the sound of it approaching—at least, that’s what the person on the other line told me.

motohint 5 Florence Ion

The Moto Hint comes with its own little charging pod that doubles as an extra battery pack of sorts.

The smartest element of the Hint is its stylish charging pod. It charges the Hint when tethered, and then doubles as a portable battery back so that you always have juice with you when you need it. The device itself lasts for about three hours of constant talk time, so you’ll want to carry around its portable little charger when you’re out for the day.

Worth the price

motohint 1 Florence Ion

Yep, it’s small. 

You don’t have to settle for an old school, sticks-out-of-your-head Bluetooth headset. Motorola put so much thought into the Hint, from its components to how it looks, that it’s worth considering over those other alternatives. And although it’s $150 for a device with extra features that only work with certain smartphones, it works great and is much better looking than any other Bluetooth headset.

Billionaire Paul Allen donates 10,000 smartphones to the Ebola battle

Billionaire Paul Allen is sending more than 10,000 smartphones to West Africa to help in the battle against Ebola.

The Microsoft co-founder’s Paul G. Allen Family Foundation is providing the specially-programmed phones in an attempt to help government workers and aid volunteers gather data about the effectiveness of relief efforts in the disease-ravaged region.

“We need reliable data to understand what is going on in impacted areas to get ahead of the Ebola crisis,” said Allen, in a statement released on Monday.

The smartphones are the philanthropist’s latest contribution to the Ebola battle.

Last month Allen said that he would increase his contribution to fighting the deadly disease to at least $100 million. In September the philanthropist donated $9 million to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to support the fight against Ebola.

While a number of the phones were purchased by the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, others were gifts from companies.

As part of Allen’s existing commitment to tackle Ebola, he also announced a grant to communications specialist NetHope on Monday. NetHope is an international consortium of NGOs devoted to improving emergency response organizations’ IT communications.   

“NetHope is working closely with the U.N. and all of the large response organizations to identify the gaps in communications capacity,” said Allen. “Today, we are committing resources to boost communication and data collection capabilities to more effectively fight Ebola in West Africa.”

Allen’s donation to NetHope will help establish a fund to boost connectivity at 45 locations, as well as the deployment of up to 10 satellite communication terminals. The grant will also fund a number of short-term private sector projects to extend mobile capacity, as well as helping mobile operators widen their existing networks.

Technology is becoming a key weapon in the fight against Ebola. Last month, for example, IBM launched an analytics system to help track the spread of the deadly disease in Sierra Leone.

The system developed by IBM’s Nairobi, Kenya-based Africa research lab and Sierra Leone’s Government lets citizens report Ebola-related issues and concerns via text message or phone calls. The goal is to provide the country’s government with insight into communities affected by Ebola and improve its strategy for containing the disease.

Selena Gomez Takes a Page Out of Taylor Swift's Instagram Songbook Lip-sync of other stars' tunes are becoming social video gold

 Last week, Taylor Swift was the No. 1 celebrity on the Adweek/Shareablee Instagram branded video charts after she posted a clip of herself driving in a car while lip-syncing to Kendrick Lamar's hip-hop tune "Backseat Freestyle." The Spotify-dissing songstress picked up 913,500 likes and comments for the 15-second social video.
And it appears that Selena Gomez might have taken notice because she grabbed the top spot in the celebrity category this week by employing the same tactic. Gomez does more than lip-sync in her Instagram video, though, as the 22-year-old pop star belts out the chorus from Carrie Underwood's "Something in the Water" tune that hit the market this month.
Like Swift, Gomez selected a song from an artist who doesn't normally perform in her category. (Gomez is pop, while Underwood is country, for instance.) And Swift and Gomez chose to shoot the video in a car. While it could be a coincidence, Gomez lists Swift as an influence on her Wikipedia page, so they could easily follow one another on the social platform.
At any rate, Instagram users definitely "like" seeing pop singers cover other stars' tunes. Gomez garnered 758,000 likes and comments for her effort to beat out all others in her niche from Nov. 10 through Nov. 16.
The Adweek/Shareablee chart below features eight categories (auto, beauty, consumer electronics, retail, fashion, celebrity, sports leagues and TV shows) every week and showcases the best branded effort. Two wildcard niches are always sprinkled in, and we've chosen sporting goods/apparel and fashion luxury for this week's edition.
Another standout performance goes to Mercedes-Benz, which continues to show that taking Instagram viewers to unusual places is a winning formula.
Check out Gomez and Mercedes-Benz's work via the multimedia infographic below where you can watch the top Instagram videos and see the brands' organic reach.

How to buy the perfect PC gaming laptop

Desktop diehards and the Reddit build-it crowd might scoff at the very concept of a portable PC gaming machine, but the gulf between gaming desktops and gaming laptops has narrowed considerably over the years. Today’s laptops can play modern games at 1080p and higher with few to no compromises in graphics settings. And that's not bad.

Sure, traditional desktop PCs offer more expansion options and easier upgrade paths, and can be significantly cheaper for the performance you get. But there's no denying the appeal of a single, self-contained gaming machine that you can move from the living room to the dining room to even the back porch.

You just need to pick your gaming laptop wisely. Your decisions will key into a series of component choices, so let's dig into them, one by one.

Twitter "Exhaust" Reveals Patterns of Unemployment

Twitter data mining reveals surprising detail about socioeconomic indicators but at a fraction of the cost of traditional data-gathering methods, say computational sociologists.

Human behaviour is closely linked to social and economic status. For example, the way an individual travels round a city is influenced by their job, their income and their lifestyle.

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that economic status might also be reflected in patterns of social media behaviour. Indeed, that’s exactly what, say Alejandro Llorente at the Autonomous University of Madrid in Spain and a few pals. Today, these guys show that the broad pattern of tweets across cities and counties in Spain reveals fascinating detail about unemployment rates in these areas.

These guys began with a database of 19.6 million geolocated tweets in Spain published between November 2012 and June 2013. Llorente and co wanted to correlate these tweets with regions of economic activity but these are not easy to determine. That’s because they do not correspond well to the administrative boundaries in Spain, which reflect historical and political boundaries rather than economic ones.

So the team analysed the rate at which messages were exchanged between regions using a standard community detection algorithm. This revealed 340 independent areas of economic activity, which largely coincide with other measures of geographic and economic distribution. “This result shows that the mobility detected from geolocated tweets and the communities obtained are a good description of economical areas,” they say.

Finally, they looked at the unemployment figures in each of these regions and then mined their database for correlations with twitter activity.

The results show clear differences between regions with high and low unemployment. For example, the rate of tweeting between 9am and midday on weekdays is significantly higher in areas of high unemployment. These tweets are more likely to contain words such as job or unemployment.  And the messages are also more likely to contain spelling mistakes, perhaps reflecting a lower level of education among the unemployed.

“We demonstrate that behavioural features related to unemployment can be recovered from the digital exhaust left by the microblogging network Twitter,” say Llorente and co.

That’s important because this kind of analysis is quick and easy compared to traditional methods of data collection, such as surveys. These are expensive, so much so that some countries have considered abandoning them in times of economic hardship to save money.

The possibility that Twitter data can provide a quick and cheap overview of unemployment is therefore an interesting alternative. What’s more, it allows governments and policy makers to monitor changes in the population, more or less in real time.

“The immediacy of social media may also allow governments to better measure and understand the effect of policies, social changes, natural or man-made disasters in the economical status of cities in almost real-time,” say Llorente and co, adding that their techniques should be applicable anywhere in the world.

Work like this shows how the nature of economic data gathering is changing. It’ll be interesting to see how quickly governments and other organisations adapt.

Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1411.3140  Social Media Fingerprints Of Unemployment

Flip phones are hip again

Hipsters, rejoice. Next time you ride your fixed-gear bicycle to the the thrift store, where you find a vintage, grease-stained mechanic's shirt that matches your Rollie Fingers mustache and Grizzly Adams beard, there's an edgy, if technologically sub-optimal, way to tell your friends about it.
Use a flip phone.

In an age of the iPhone 6 Plus and massive Android phablets, flip phones are inexplicably making a comeback.

No less an arbiter of cool than Vogue magazine editor Anna Wintour has apparently dumped her iPhone in favor of a flipper. Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, actress Kate Beckinsale and even Rihanna are just a few of the celebrities spotted proudly brandishing the famous piece of paleo-technology.
And, believe it or not, "dumb phones" aren't exactly the elusive unicorn that some of us think they are.
As of January, 56% of American adults owned smartphones, compared to a total of 90% who had a cellphone of some kind, according to the Pew Research Internet Project. Among millennials age 18-29, an overwhelming 83% of those who owned cellphones had a smartphone, but that leaves the other 17% who keep their mobile life more basic.

The hinged, snap-shut "flipper" form factor was originally introduced to the public in 1982 by laptop manufacturer GriD with its Compass computer.

Motorola, perhaps the king of flip phones with its Razr line, introduced the clamshell style in 1996 with its StarTAC phone (which, appropriately enough, was re-released for nostalgic techies in 2010).
Is this really all about going for retro, hipster street cred? There is, at times, a mystifying aspect of "cool" that centers around eschewing modern convenience for vintage ... well ... inconvenience.
Writing on typewriters? Check. Racing high-wheel bicycles from the 1880s? Yes. Playing baseball with the rules and equipment of the 1860s? Absolutely.

But there are obviously some more practical reasons some people, including millennials, go flip.
For some, it's about simplifying and uncluttering in a 24/7 plugged-in society.
"It just seemed like it would be better for my addled brain than a smartphone," 26-year-old Angelica Baker, a tutor and writer, told TIME. "Personally I'm too scattered and unfocused to handle email and Facebook on my phone."

Baker swapped out her Droid for her mom's retired flip phone, a pink Motorola Razr.
No one has to worry about the iCloud being hacked when they use a flip phone. There's little to no eye and neck strain. No fear of Flappy Bird addiction.


And, let's be honest ... there's something satisfying about a switchblade-like phone flip after an annoying phone conversation that even the most emphatic tap of a touchscreen will never approach.
Maybe the hipsters are onto something after all. Though we'll still pass on the bushy beards.

Is the government spying on you? Find out

Are you concerned that the government is spying on you? A consortium of human rights activists claim a new app called Detekt will alert you if the feds are watching.

Detekt works like an antivirus scan. Run it on your computer, and it tells you if the machine has been infected with malware that many government-sponsored hackers are known to use to spy on activists and journalists.

For example, the Ethiopian government has been hiring hacking mercenaries to crack down on bloggers. Ethopia has jailed journalists for critical reporting. Their surveillance is widespread: An American citizen in Silver Spring, Maryland with Ethiopian ties recently found this kind of spyware on his home computer, according to a federal lawsuit.

Ala'a Shehabi, a British economist in Bahrain, was among those targeted with FinFisher spyware during that country's lethal military crackdown on pro-democracy protests during the Arab Spring in 2012.

And the Chinese government is widely suspected of spying on its citizens' online activities.

Related: How the NSA can 'turn on' your phone remotely

Detekt is the work of Italian security researcher Claudio Guarnieri, Amnesty International, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and similar groups in England and Germany.

Detekt is limited, though. It only works on Windows computers. Researchers don't have enough insight into how spyware works on Macs, Guarnieri said.

It's also not meant to stop the kind of bulk government surveillance revealed by NSA contractor Edward Snowden last year.

And Detekt only spots eight different types of malware, including the strains most commonly used by governments. Now that government-hired hackers know there's a foil around, they're sure to find a workaround, Guarnieri acknowledged.

Those limitations are why some cybersecurity experts aren't convinced it'll work.

But it's not meant to be the only solution, said Jillian C. York, who worked on the project as EFF's director for international freedom of expression.

"It's just one more piece of a toolkit to fight corporations selling spyware to democratic and authoritarian governments," she said. "But we absolutely need it."

The fact that Detekt was made an open-source project means that it can only get better, because anyone can see how the code works -- and contribute to it. It also makes Detekt trustworthy, said Mikko Hypponen, the top security researcher at F-Secure in Finland.

But if anything else, the man behind Detekt also hopes it will spark a conversation about the ethical ramifications of government espionage.

"I also hope that this will get people to reflect on how they feel about their governments using spyware," Guarnieri said.

Android Lollipop update causes problems

Users have reported Adobe Air-based apps being wiped from their handsets

Early adopters of Google's latest Android operating system are warning others of problems with the software.

Issues include the update causing Nexus 7 tablets to run slowly and repeatedly crash, with several users complaining they had become "unusable".

The code also appears to remove apps built with Adobe Air and then prevent them from being reinstalled.

Adobe said it had not been aware of this "critical" bug before Tuesday and had escalated it with Google.

A spokesman for the search firm was unable to comment at this time.

'Shockingly bad'
Android 5.0 - also known as Lollipop - is described as a "quantum leap forward" by Google and has attracted several positive reviews, fuelling desire for the software.

It revamps the system's user interface, offers greater control over notifications, and makes changes to the way the OS executes code, which Google said should mean fewer "temporary glitches" than before.

At the moment, it is only available to a limited number of machines, because many network operators and device manufacturers have yet to complete their own tests.

However, owners of Nexus-branded machines - which are sold by Google itself - can install the software by downloading it from the firm's website or, in the case of the Asus-made Nexus 7, accepting an over-

Victoria's Secret Wants to Win Over Millennials With Its Own Mobile Messaging App 'Pink' lets you talk and shop

Victoria's Secret wants to see what today's millennials are talking about with a new twist on mobile messaging.

At the same time that practically all millennial-minded marketers are using Snapchat, Line, Kik and every other social and mobile platform out there to get in touch with teens, Victoria's Secret has rolled out its own chat feature within its Pink shopping app.
The lingerie brand is the first marketer to use a chatting feature from a mobile messaging app called Frankly.
After opening the chat feature, app users can talk about predetermined topics like holiday gifts or school. Because this is Victoria's Secret (and millennials are fickle) the public chats are customizable with different shades of pink backgrounds and branded emojis. There's also the usual crop of smiley face emojis that app users can play with, much like a text message.
On Dec. 9, the chat function will be used to push out exclusive content during the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show in London. The retailer recently used the app to announce that singer Ariana Grande was performing at the show.
There is also a button to download the stand-alone Frankly mobile messaging app.
With a demographic that’s highly skewed toward millennials, mobile is important for Victoria’s Secret. This summer the brand launched an augmented reality feature within its app, in addition the the usual games and content, to keep people engaged.
Frankly claims to have been downloaded 1.5 million times, which is small potatoes compared to most messaging apps. Earlier this year, Forrester Research published a report showing that WhatsApp has 500 million users and Line has 420 million.

Facebook Turns Away From NewFronts Over Lack of Original Content Social network was removed from schedule By Michelle Castillo

UPDATE: Facebook has been removed from the 2015 NewFronts schedule because the company didn't plan to present original content.

The tentative 2015 NewFronts lineup obtained by Adweek on Wednesday afternoon showed Facebook was slated to present between 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., April 30. Facebook said that it decided before the slate was officially released on Thursday morning that it was not going to participate.
"We had initial talks with the IAB about participating in the NewFronts, and as we got closer to the schedule being confirmed, we had more in-depth conversations about the goals of the NewFronts and IAB's vision for the event," a Facebook rep said via email. "Since Facebook does not produce original content, we decided it doesn't make sense for us to participate at this time."


Anna Bager, svp of mobile and video at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, said the decision was mutual. "We had been talking to Facebook about the potential of joining the roster as well, but after some back and forth, we both determined that this wasn't the right moment for them to take part," she said.
After speaking with multiple sources close to the situation, Adweek reported on Monday that Facebook would have a slot at the NewFronts. Sources said that Facebook and the IAB had been in discussions for months about participating but had not 100 percent committed when the IAB began widely releasing the schedule on Thursday. However, an insider with knowledge about the event countered Facebook's claims, saying the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company was asked by the IAB not to participate because it had no proprietary digital programming to show at its presentation.


In the official press release for the 2015 NewFronts schedule, IAB reiterated its dedication to original programing. "Last year's NewFronts provided a defining moment for original digital video programming, as marketers, media buyers and the press were wowed by knockout presentations that not only turned heads, but moved dollars," said Bager. "Consumers are captivated by original digital video, whether watching it on a computer, tablet, smartphone or Internet-connected TV, and with this annual marketplace fueling buy-side interest and demand, the sky could be the limit for this new form of programming."
The NewFronts began in 2012 as a response to television's annual Upfronts, an opportunity for advertisers to preview upcoming programming. Facebook was part of the inaugural 2014 IAB Digital Upfronts U.K. in October, but did not present original content at that time. What Facebook intended to show in 2015—and why it was allowed to present in the U.K. but not in the U.S.—is unclear.

Introducing the Facebook Groups App

People use Facebook Groups every day to stay in touch with family, collaborate on projects, plan trips and offer support to friends.

Today, we’re introducing a new Facebook Groups app that helps people share faster and more easily with all the groups in their life. We built this app with the people who use Groups the most in mind, like:

• Students from Donda’s House, an arts nonprofit in Chicago, who use groups to stay in touch during and after a 12-week music program
• A class of dental students in Brazil who use a group to post notes and reminders about upcoming tests and due dates
• Nine best friends spread out across Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and England who use a group to keep connected

Here’s how it works:

When you open the app, you’ll see all your Facebook Groups in one place. Groups you use most frequently are at the top, and you can quickly move between each group.

Easily start a new group by tapping Create.

You can also track notifications and easily control which notifications you want to see.

In the new Discover tab, you’ll see groups suggested to you based on Pages you’ve liked, groups your friends are in and where you live.

You can still use Facebook Groups in the main Facebook app and on desktop, and over time we’ll continue to make those experiences faster and better, too.

Facebook Groups, part of Facebook Creative Labs, is available in all countries on Android and iOS today.

Millionaire YouTube Star Bethany Mota Shares The Secrets To Being Successful Online

Bethany Mota seems to be doing it all.

Not only is she a massive YouTube celebrity — millions of people watch her beauty and style videos — but she's also a budding fashion designer, guest judge on Project Runway, and a contestant on ABC's "Dancing With The Stars." 

But what does it take to be successful online?

Mota shares her tips:

Be real and be yourself.

People are attracted to authenticity.

Be consistent and upload videos as often as you can.

Mota told Seventeen Magazine this fall that the most important part about making and uploading videos is loving what you're producing, saying that people can tell if your heart isn't 100% into it.

You have to have passion, and refuse to coast. 

If you're just in it for the success, she tells Seventeen, it won't work,

Despite all of her new projects, Bethany still edits, plans, and creates every video herself—just like she did back then! She revealed that it can take her 2-3 days sometimes just to edit one video, and between getting all the supplies, actually making the projects or putting on the beauty and fashion looks, and then burying herself in tech, that time adds up! 

Stay connected with your audience, no matter how many of them there are.

"Even if you just have five subscribers, you just have to focus on the audience you do have and creating good content for them. As long as you're having fun with it, then that's all that matters," she told AdWeek.

He Sold 'Draw Something' For ~ $200 Million — Now Dan Porter Is Back With A New Startup

Dan Porter left Zynga in April 2013, almost exactly one year after it acquired his startup, OMGPOP, for ~$200 million.

OMGPOP was the maker of Draw Something, one of the first mobile games to go viral. It racked up 1.2 million downloads within its first week and a half. Three months later, Zynga dropped tons of money on it. After the acquisition, users promptly lost interest in the game. Zynga later shut down its entire New York operation, and Porter agreed to leave.

That year for Porter was exhausting.

"That was a tough experience at Zynga," Porter tells us. "Obviously making an app and having it be so successful is amazing. It's really fun and I wish it on everyone. It was just like, I wanted to make something else."

As a free agent, Porter and his wife spent the summer traveling. When they returned to New York, Porter took a cushy corporate job at Ari Emanuel's talent agency, WME. Emanuel and Porter had been introduced by an OMGPOP investor, Marc Andreessen. The role, head of digital, would allow Porter to continue innovating at startup speed.

"I basically took [Emanuel] at his word that I could join WME and we could figure out cool stuff to make, and they’d support me," Porter says. "And that ended up being true." Over the past year, he's stayed out of the spotlight, quietly making digital investments for the company in startups such as ClassPass and Into the Gloss.

Now, Porter is ready to be a startup CEO again.

He and a group of former OMGPOP-ers have launched a new mobile startup, Tally, that's backed by WME. Porter will remain head of digital at the parent company while trying to get Tally off the ground. It launches on iOS today.

These Are The Highest Paying Programming Languages You Should Learn, Ranked By Salary

Computer programming has quickly become one of the most lucrative industries in the United States. In fact, the average salary for a computer programmer just hit an all-time high as it approaches $100,000. But, there are some languages and skill sets that are more valuable than others, and Quartz has compiled some data to break down these differences.

Quartz's Max Nisen pulled out some figures on the most valuable programming languages based on a larger study from the Brokings Institution that was published in July.

Based on that data, here are programming languages listed next to their average annual salary from lowest to highest:

12. PERL - $82,513

11. SQL - $85,511

10. Visual Basic - $85,962

9. C# - $89,074

8. R- $90,055

7. C - 90,134

6. JavaScript - $91,461

5. C++ - $93,502

4. JAVA - $94,908

3. Python - $100,717

2. Objective C - $108,225

1. Ruby on Rails - $109,460

While some of these coding languages can help you earn around $100,000, train to become a Salesforce Architect if you want one of the highest paying jobs in tech. According to data from IT recruiting firm Mondo that was published back in March, Salesforce Architects can earn anywhere between $180,000 and $200,000.

Samsung Had A Plan To End Android, But It's Failing

For the past two years, Samsung has been working on its own smartphone operating system, called "Tizen."

Tizen is very similar to Android. It's open source, meaning any smartphone maker can use it for free.

It's also a way for Samsung to wean itself off Android and use its own software instead. The theory goes that Samsung is ceding a lot of potential revenue to Google because it has to offer customers Google's app store and other services if it wants to keep using Android.

Samsung is the biggest Android phone maker in the world, but it's still giving a ton of control over its future to Google.

Yet, it sounds like Tizen is faltering. Samsung's chief architect of Tizen, Taesoon Jun, told CNET's Shara Tibken recently that the company is shifting its plans for the operating system. Instead of loading Tizen on high-end phones with specs similar to the Galaxy S5 or Galaxy Note 4, Samsung will put it on cheap phones to compete at the low-end of the smartphone market.

That's a troubling sign for Samsung, which has been struggling all year to combat dwindling smartphone sales and profits. Profits were down nearly 50% in the third quarter, and Samsung blamed increased competition from other smartphone makers.

For example, the Chinese startup Xiaomi makes phones with high-end specs similar to what you'd find in Samsung's best phones, but sells them for about half the price. Xiaomi is now the third largest smartphone maker in the world in terms of unit sales.

Still, Tizen isn't just for phones. Samsung also uses the operating system on several of its smartwatches, which is seen as the next major product category for mobile device makers. On the other hand, Samsung's watches have been poorly reviewed and there aren't any indications that they've been selling very well.

Samsung is still very profitable, but its next challenge is to find a way to differentiate its phones from the competition in order to stop its drastic decline in profits. The best way to do that would be to innovate on the software level, and Tizen was a big opportunity for Samsung. But it seems like it's just another Android clone that will be used in cheap phones.