Google makes Earth Pro available to virtual travelers for free

Google makes Earth Pro available to virtual travelers for free

While we're sure Google Earth works just fine for your daily virtual 'round-the-world travels, the Pro version comes with some really useful features -- even better, it's now completely free. Google Earth Pro, which used to cost an eye-watering $399 per year, gives you the tools to measure 3D buildings and other locations, print high-resolution screenshots, view demographic and traffic layers, and even record your virtual trips. To use it for free, you'll first need to sign up for a license and make sure your PC or Mac meets the minimum system requirements needed to run the program.
Windows computers should be running XP or higher, and have at least 500MB of free storage and 512MB of RAM. Macs, on the other hand, have to run OS 10.6 or higher, along with the same storage and memory requirements. After that, you can download Google Earth Pro to plan for that hike you've always wanted to do or, you know, to take your armchair adventures to the next level -- we ain't judging.Google Maps Blog

Mariella Moon
Engadget

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Zayn Malik's Full Haircut Has Finally Been Revealed

Zayn Malik's Full Haircut Has Finally Been Revealed

We naturally freaked out a little bit when Zayn Malik cut his hair. After all, the One Direction singer gave no hints that he was going to say goodbye to his long locks! He teased us by releasing only one photo taken from the front, leading us to question if his man bun was still present, especially after he made a fan drawing of him with a baby bun his Twitter pic. After patiently waiting, we finally have our answer.

The barbershop where Zayn got his hair cut shared this epic photo and we have confirmation that his bun is still there. Zayn decided to buzz the sides of his head, but he just couldn't get rid of his long hair completely. This hairstyle is super sleek and definitely different from anything Zayn has done in the past.

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Taylor Swift's Twitter & Instagram Accounts Were Hacked Today - Here's Her Response

Taylor Swift's Twitter & Instagram Accounts Were Hacked Today - Here's Her Response

Oh no! Taylor Swift‘s Twitter andInstagram accounts were hacked today by a group of hackers and they posted some tweets which made fans immediately suspicious.

“My Twitter got hacked but don’t worry, Twitter is deleting the hacker tweets and locking my account until they can figure out how this happened and get me new passwords.
Never a dull moment.” the 25-year-old superstar wrote on her Tumblraccount. The tweets in question are currently deleted from her account.

The Lizard Squad is a group that seems to be behind the cyber hack. The collective of hackers have claimed responsibility for hacking Playstation recently

Taylor Swift‘s Twitter is back up and running after being hacked earlier in the day!

The 25-year-old entertainer announced she was back in business with a fun tweet, “Cause the hackers gonna hack, hack, hack, hack, hack..” referencing her hit “Shake It Off.”

Taylor also referenced that there are NO nudes of her, which was a rumor spreading after the hacking. “PS any hackers saying they have ‘nudes’? Psssh you’d love that wouldn’t you! Have fun photoshopping cause you got NOTHING”

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Stars Most Stylish Selfie of the Week

Stars Most Stylish Selfie of the Week

Credit : Instagram
Selena Gomez showed off a gorgeous and artistic new selfie! The singer shared a photo showcasing her blue-toned hair with an aquarium view above her, and we're so impressed with the stylish shot.
Also see other stars selfie

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Microsoft's Surface tablet and Xbox businesses are booming

Microsoft's Surface tablet and Xbox businesses are booming

Microsoft appears to be well past the days when it was writing off unsold Surface tablets and struggling to match Sony in game console sales. The Windows developer reports that its Devices and Consumer group's revenue grew 8 percent year over year in the last calendar quarter of 2014, thanks in no small part to healthy Surface and Xbox sales. It's not revealing shipment numbers for the Surface, but it notes that revenue for the slate computers shot up 24 percent versus a year earlier, thanks in no small part to the Surface Pro 3.

The company also notes that it sold a healthy 6.6 million Xbox systems during the holidays. Unfortunately, Microsoft isn't breaking that down by model. While there's no doubt the Xbox One turned a corner this fall through aggressive discounts and a better game selection, it's hard to know how many of those sales were modern systems. Sony was quick to say that it sold 4.1 million PlayStation 4s just during the last month of holiday shopping, so it's apparent that there was at least a fierce fight between current-generation platforms.

It's otherwise a quarter for the Redmond crew. The company posted a rare net operating loss of $243 million, although you can largely chalk that up to the costs of both its massive restructuring plan and integrating Nokia's former mobile team. Windows licensing revenue is down 13 percent year-over-year thanks to both an unforgiving PC market and free Windows licenses for small devices, but that's offset by the company's continued successes in cloud efforts, such as Bing search and Azure. In short, Microsoft is still transitioning away from an old-school strategy where Windows sales reign supreme. The upcoming release of Windows 10 will undoubtedly be important, but it won't be quite as much of a make-or-break product as its ancestors.
Microsoft

Jon Fingas

Engadget 

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Facebook suffers outage affecting users worldwide

Facebook suffers outage affecting users worldwide

SEOUL, South Korea — Facebook is suffering a widespread outage Tuesday affecting users in the United States, Asia and Australia.
The social media giant's Instagram service is also inaccessible.
Instagram said on its Twitter account that it is aware of an outage and is working on a fix.
There was no immediate statement from Facebook.
Facebook had 1.25 billion monthly active users at the end of September.

Associated Press

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Nathan Sykes Wrote a Song About Ariana Grande

Nathan Sykes has opened up about his split from Ariana Grande — and even revealed that he's writing a song about their breakup! In a new interview with The Sun, he confirmed that his solo album will definitely have a track about the end of their relationship.

"The most emotional song [on the album] is about me telling myself not to be angry at the breakup because sometimes things just don't work out. That's life," he said.

"The time we broke up was really tough. The Wanted decided to take a break and I lost my grandad. I was not in the best place. She was my first grown-up relationship. But sometimes you have to go into a place like that to be able to find the best music out of it."

However, he won't be slamming his ex, or going into the gory details of their split.

When asked if Ariana knew about the song, he said, "No. But it's important not to be selfish with writing so there's no detailed version of events. And there's no bad blood. She's a lovely girl."

Since the "Break Free" singer is so happy with her boyfriend Big Sean, we're glad that Nathan's not holding it against her! But we're definitely interested in seeing if he'll pull a Taylor Swift and include some sneaky references to the singer in his track.

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Michael Clifford Fires Back at Abigail Breslin's Diss Track

Michael Clifford Fires Back at Abigail Breslin's Diss Track

5 Seconds of Summer's Michael Clifford has fired back at Abigail Breslin for her breakup song
about him.
After the actress tweeted against bullying, writing, "i mean calling each other ugly and stupid and gross for what? what is it worth? what do you gain from it?" another Twitter user accused her of doing that with her blistering diss track

After she responded by calling it a "joke song," the 5SOS guy said he didn't find it very funny!

She didn't directly respond to his tweet, but she did throw shade at him.

She called him out for "hiding behind a screen."

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Happy Birthday ! Celebrate Calum Hood's Coolest Selfies Ever

We can't believe it either, but Calum Hood is celebrating his 19th birthday today! In honor of the 5 Seconds of Summer artist's birthday (and last year as a teenager!!!!), we decided to round up some of his coolest Instagram pics of all time and marvel at his extreme cuteness!

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Google explains why it's not fixing web security in old Android phones

Google explains why it's not fixing web security in old Android phones

You might not be happy that Google isn't fixing a web security flaw in your older Android phone, but the search giant now says that it has some good reasons for holding off. As the company's Adrian Ludwig explains, it's no longer viable to "safely" patch vulnerable, pre-Android 4.4 versions of WebView (a framework that lets apps show websites without a separate browser) to prevent remote attacks. The sheer amount of necessary code changes would create legions of problems, he claims, especially since developers are introducing "thousands" of tweaks to the open source software every month.
Ludwig suggests a few things you can do to avoid or mitigate problems, though. For a start, he recommends surfing with browsers that don't use WebView but still get updates, like Chrome (which works on devices using Android 4.0) and Firefox (which runs on ancient Android 2.3 hardware). Hackers can't abuse the vulnerable software if you're not using it, after all. The Googler also tells app creators to either use their own web rendering tech or limit WebView to pages they can trust, like encrypted sites.
The advice should help if you're either a tech-savvy user or write apps. However, it still hints that quite a few people will remain at risk until those older releases of Android ride into the sunset. Many Android device owners aren't aware of alternatives to the stock Android browser, or can't easily get them (you have to jump through hoops to install Chrome if you can't use the Google Play Store, for instance). Also, there's no simple way to tell whether or not an app is using WebView. The chances of an attack are low if you're careful, but it could take a long, long while before the majority of Android gadgets are truly safe from WebView-related web exploits.
Adrian Ludwig (Google+)

Jon Fingas

Engadget 

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Diplo Thinks Taylor Swift's Fans Are 'Mean-Spirited, Evil Human Beings'

Diplo Thinks Taylor Swift's Fans Are 'Mean-Spirited, Evil Human Beings'

Diplo has more to say about his feud with Taylor Swift in a recent interview with GQ.

“Taylor Swift fans are really crazy,” the 36-year-old DJ told the mag. “They threatened to murder me and stuff. It’s really bizarre, and disgusting. They’re the worst people in the world.” and he said some more mean stuff about all the swifties! ! 

further he said "She has like forty million Twitter fans. Forty million! Yeah. It’s crazy. I’m a fan though. Her powers — she’s big. She’s strong, bro. Taylor Swift is very strategic with her friends and enemies. And I know lots of secrets. I can’t divulge, but I know a lot of stuff about her. And she’s definitely, there’s definitely scary stuff going on. And I’m scared. I’m scared for my life.”

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Twitter doesn't want its biggest users to post Instagram links

Twitter doesn't want its biggest users to post Instagram links

In December 2014, Instagram overtook Twitter's monthly active user number. Well, someone from Twitter must have found that alarming, because the microblogging website is now urging its most prolific users not to tweet out links to Instagram photos. In a screenshot obtained by Mashable (embedded below the fold), you'll see the splash page the company's showing its power users, asking them to post their pictures directly on the website.

A source confirmed to the publication that Twitter unleashed the prompt to a number of notable entertainment, media and sports accounts, in part to remind them that the website does have native photo editing tools and to show them how those work.

Yes, Twitter does have its own photo editor and filters, in case you've been too busy crossposting pictures to notice. They were even launched around the same time Instagram killed off Twitter photo integration. But, and we're sure you'll agree, people still choose to crosspost Instagram content even if they show up as links instead of actual pictures, because, well, it's just more convenient that way. It's unclear if the rest of us will see the same prompt in the future, but for now, Twitter's likely hoping its influential clientele can set an example, so to speak.
Mariella Moon
 Engadget

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