HTC's next flagship phone to be unveiled on March 1st

HTC's next flagship phone to be unveiled on March 1st

we're still in the middle of January, some of us are already hearing bits about the upcoming MWC. One e-mail that caught our attention comes from none other than HTC, who is already teasing its very own Barcelona event on March 1st -- the day before MWC kicks off. We understand that this will be the launch of the company's next flagship device, which sounds about right; the One (M8) was unveiled back in March 25th and went to market soon afterwards.
The invitation itself doesn't show much other than a "utopia in progress" line over a cosmic background (full image attached after the break), though the latter may be teasing some breakthrough camera technology, as we once heard a little while back. As always, we'll be at Barcelona to find out what HTC and others got up their sleeves, so stay tuned.

Richard Lai
Engadget

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Apple and Google want to settle no-poaching lawsuit for $415 million

Apple and Google want to settle no-poaching lawsuit for $415 million

Google, Apple, Adobe and Intel do not want to go to trial in April -- they've made that clear by agreeing to a $415 million settlement for the no-poaching class action lawsuit filed by over 60,000 employees years ago. The companies originally offered $324.5 million in 2014, but Judge Lucy Koh turned it down, as she believed the plaintiffs deserve a lot more than that. That's still far from the $3 billion the plaintiffs originally wanted, but it's still $90 million more to divvy up amongst themselves. What's this no-poaching lawsuit about anyway? Well, between 2005 and 2009, these four Silicon Valley corporations along with Lucasfilm, Intuit and Pixar had an agreement not to steal each other's employees.

You might recall that Steve Jobs even emailed then-Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt back in 2007 to ask Mountain View's HR department to stop trying to recruit one of Apple's engineers, as per their deal. The employees that filed the class action lawsuit accuse the companies of enforcing a no-poaching agreement in order to keep salaries low. Lucasfilm, Pixar and Intuit already settled for $20 million and the agreement's no longer in place, but since the remaining four companies are much larger, negotiations are taking time.

Despite the significantly more generous offer, the companies continue to deny any wrongdoing. As Intel spokesperson Chuck Mulloy told CNET:


We deny the allegations contained in the suit and we deny that we violated any laws or that we have any obligation to the plaintiff. We elected to settle the matter in order to avoid the risk, burdens and uncertainty of ongoing litigation.
Reuters

Mariella Moon

Engadget 

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Hackers announce 'World War III' on Twitter

Hackers announce 'World War III' on Twitter

Hackers took over the Twitter accounts of the New York Post and United Press International on Friday, writing bogus messages, including about hostilities breaking out between the United States and China.

One tweet posted under the UPI account quoted Pope Francis as saying, "World War III has begun."
Another message delivered on the Post account said the USS George Washington, an aircraft carrier, was "engaged in active combat" against Chinese warships in the South China Sea.
The tweets were subsequently deleted.

A Post tweet later noted that "Our Twitter account was briefly hacked and we are investigating."
The fake tweets were not just about war. One posted on UPI said "Just in: Bank of America CEO calls for calm: Savings accounts will not be affected by federal reserve decision."
The Post is owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp.

Several media organizations have had their Twitter feeds hacked over the past two years including Agence France-Presse, the BBC and others.

A Pentagon official said the tweet about hostilities with China was "not true."

Agence France-Presse (AFP) 

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Taylor Like a Supermodel While Leaving the Gym

Taylor Like a Supermodel While Leaving the Gym

Credit: Bauer-Griffin/GC Images

Taylor Swift's street style is incredible, but her just-leaving-the-gym styles are just next level. The singer was photographed leaving the gym in California yesterday, and the photos are not your average paparazzi shots: she literally looks effortlessly graceful model.

When the sun catches her this perfectly, it looks like she's shooting the cover art for her next album.

But we can assure you that she was just leaving the gym, as evidenced by this photo

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Ed Sheeran Just Got Majorly Dissed

Ed Sheeran Just Got Majorly Dissed 

Ed Sheeran just got majorly dissed by Noel Gallagher. The legendary Oasis band member said that he didn't want to live in a world with the "Thinking Out Loud" singer!

When asked about his upcoming performances in London's Wembley Stadium — which can fit 80,000 people — Noel couldn't believe that many people wanted to see him. (Ed was so popular that they had to add two tour dates because Sheerios demanded it.)

"I don’t think I can live in a world where that’s even possible [for Ed to headline three gigs at Wembley Stadium]," he told NME

"When you hear that kind of polished pop and then there’s a ginger guy with a guitar it seems subversive, but it’s not."

Of course, the "Don't" singer responded in the most perfect way, tweeting, "i can live in it, its really enjoyable."

We're so proud of everything he's accomplished, and we think that he really does deserve all his success! He's even performing at the Brit Awards and starting his own record label for up-and-coming artists. So, yes, we do like living in a world with Ed's successful career 

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Calum Hood Celebrates 5 Seconds of Summer's Brit Awards Nomination

Calum Hood Celebrates 5 Seconds of Summer's Brit Awards Nomination

5 Seconds of Summer just earned a Brit Awards 2015 nomination for Best International Group, and Calum Hood celebrated in the sweetest way! The bassist tweeted about how amazing it was to be nominated, and discussed how thankful he is for his bandmates.

Then, he also honored Ashton Irwin, Michael Clifford, and Luke Hemmings, writing that he was "super happy" to have them in his life.

That's so sweet!

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Google won't fix a security bug that's in almost a billion Android phones

Google won't fix a security bug that's in almost a billion Android phones

A day after Google publicized a flaw in Windows 8.1 before Microsoft could do anything about it, news broke about a security vulnerability in Android that the Mountain View company, well, won't fix at all. Tod Beardsley, an analyst from Rapid7, a security data and analytics firm, found a serious bug in the WebView component of Android 4.3 and below (it's an older bit of software that lets apps view webpages without launching a separate app) that potentially opens up affected phones to malicious hackers. Android 4.4 and 5.0 are unaffected by the bug, but as 60 percent of Android users -- that's close to a billion people -- still use Android 4.3 or lower, it still affects a lot of people. Unfortunately, as Beardsley found out, Google won't fix it, leaving it up to the various OEMs and manufacturers to issue a patch instead.
The quote from Google to Beardsley is as follows:

If the affected version [of WebView] is before 4.4, we generally do not develop the patches ourselves, but welcome patches with the report for consideration. Other than notifying OEMs, we will not be able to take action on any report that is affecting versions before 4.4 that are not accompanied with a patch.

According to Beardsley, it seems that Jelly Bean devices are simply too old to support -- supporting old software versions is fairly unusual, after all. But in this case, he asks Google to reconsider, due to the wider consequences this security flaw could potentially unravel. Until then, however, it might be a good idea to upgrade to Android 4.4, or perhaps get a new phone altogether.
Rapid7

Nicole Lee

Engadget 

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Ariana Grande is Performing at the 2015 Grammys!

Ariana Grande is Performing at the 2015 Grammys!

Ariana Grande is performing at the 2015 Grammys! She'll be joining Ed Sheeran, Madonna, and Eric Church on stage February 8th, right before her tour kicks off on the 25th.

We're especially excited to see her with the "Thinking Out Loud" singer — they've already shared the stage at the 2014 Victoria's Secret Fashion Show and the 2014 MTV EMAs.

Of course, we're super-impressed that she's doing such a big performance right before she kicks off her epic international tour. But it seems like she's been taking a break by going on vacation, so hopefully she's getting a lot of rest!

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Taylor Swift Gave a Fan $1989

Taylor Swift Gave a Fan $1989 

just gave a fan $1,989 to help pay off her student loans! She gifted a Swiftie named Rebekah with the money in a little pouch reading "New York Is My Boyfriend."

As if that wasn't sweet enough, the "Blank Space" singer wrote her a touching, heartfelt letter and made her a special watercolor painting (all in a "SwiftEx" package).

"I'm not a good painter but I think you're so beautiful and positive, even though you're dealing with the stress life brings, so I wanted to make you something," she wrote.

That's so incredibly sweet! 

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Selena Gomez is Coming Out With a New Movie!

Selena Gomez is Coming Out With a New Movie!

Selena Gomez is starring in an upcoming indie movie, The Revised Fundamentals Of Caregiving, with Paul Rudd! The actress announced her latest role on Twitter, saying, "Finally able to share my new movie... Meet Dot."

According to Deadline, she'll play a "sassy 17-year-old" who catches a ride with a caregiver named Ben and a teenager named Trevor.

Since she's going on tour this year too, it sounds like she has a busy 2015 ahead — but we're so excited for her. After her heartbreaking portrayal of a grieving girlfriend in Rudderless, we know she's been trying to grow as an actress, and this seems like the perfect role.

Plus, this definitely explains why she was caught hanging out with Paul during the Golden Globes. They're going to be costars!

Filming for the movie begins January 22nd in Atlanta.

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BlackBerry is tweeting from an iPhone

BlackBerry is tweeting from an iPhone

Oh, BlackBerry. We can understand when your celebrity creative director accidentally tweets from a competitor's smartphone — or is the victim of a "hack." But your own, central Twitter account? That's no good. And yet somehow it's exactly what's just happened.

Moments ago, BlackBerry tweeted out a (since deleted) message urging its last bastion of loyal users to keep up with the conversation on Twitter. You'd think the BlackBerry Classic would be a perfect device for thumbing out 140-character missives and sending them to the world; that keyboard is undeniably fantastic.

But nope. Whoever wrote this fired it off from an iPhone. You wouldn't see it anywhere in the regular Twitter app, but companies still seem to forget this stuff is plainly visible in Tweetbot, Tweetdeck, and other third-party clients. Let's learn the lesson already, everyone. Why was this message so urgent that it needed to be tweeted from a phone? An iPhone, at that? We'll never know.
And in case you were wondering, yes, a Twitter app for BlackBerry most definitely does exist

Chris Welch

The Verge 

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This year, your car will start yelling at you for driving poorly

This year, your car will start yelling at you for driving poorly

Fitness trackers have turned into a multibillion-dollar business, but what about a fitness tracker for your car? General Motors' OnStar division is announcing today that it's launching a "driver assessment" program in cars that will track how well drivers drive — hard braking, hard acceleration, and so on — and offer detailed feedback after collecting 90 days' worth of data.
Afterward, they'll have the option of forwarding the data on to Progressive as part of its Snapshot insurance discount program, where you can get discounted insurance rates for driving well. (Progressive already offers a hardware dongle that can plug into existing cars to accomplish the same function.)

Privacy is a big concern here: although GM says that control of the system is "is in the hands of the customer," it only notes that drivers control whether they receive an assessment.
The company is using anonymized driving data to compare participating drivers to national averages — do you drive better or worse than the average driver? — but it's been well documented that anonymized location data can often be de-anonymized. Authorities and consumer advocate groups have already taken a keen interest in connected car platforms as a potential privacy problem, and a feature like this certainly won't allay many fears.

GM says the feature will be available on all 2016 models sold in the US, "most" 2015 models, and a selection of 2013 and 2014 models starting this summer.

Chris Ziegler

The Verge 

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