Teenager doesn't get an iPhone for Christmas, pulls knife on dad
By Mike Flacy | December 29th, 2013
According to a report in The Enterprise, 18-year-old Brockton, Massachusetts resident�Alexander Torres was arrested on Christmas after he allegedly�pulled a small pocket knife on his father. The reason behind the act of violence? Torres discovered that he didn't receive an Apple iPhone as a Christmas gift.�According to�Brockton Police Lt. Bruce Zeidman,�Torres was fighting with multiple family members when the authorities arrived. Fortunately, the father wasn't injured during the scuffle. However,�Torres's 24-year-old stepbrother had to be transported to a nearby medical center to be treated for unspecified injuries.
After the police were able to get the situation under control, Torres was arrested and charged with "assault and battery with a dangerous weapon" as well as "assault and battery and malicious damage to a motor vehicle." the police didn't specify if�Torres had received another brand of smartphone for Christmas, only that he did not receive the model that he originally wanted as a gift.
There also wasn't any indication if the iPhone was purchased for�Torres, but simply hadn't arrived due to shipping delays. Both UPS and Fedex are currently hustling to deliver tons of late Christmas gifts due to the last minute holiday rush, overnight shipping options on online shopping sites and inclement weather around the country.
According to NBC News, both companies have issued apologies about the deliver delays. Consumers have been hammering both companies on social media for the lack of timeliness in delivering holiday gifts. The shortened shopping season, six days shorter than last year, could have also been a contributing factor to the heavy volume of shipped gifts this year.
Apparently Apple is the #2 most talked about company out there. #1 is Google. Looks like Apple is still crispy, crunchy, juicy news worldwide.
An expert from their acceptance speech might read: "Apple would like to thank the Muftisays community for keeping us and our apple tree alive and bearing fruit in the news, we wouldn't have made it this far, this long without forum threads like yours. Thank you."
With the help of a psychology pro, Adventures in Tech explains why we get so fiercely competitive about our operating systems.
It's a battle that threatens to rend the Internet asunder with its forum-fraying ferocity: iOS vs. Android.
But why do we get so worked up over our operating systems? The latest episode of CNET's Adventures in Tech delves deep inside the human brain, to explain how something as simple as a smartphone operating system can trigger a prehistoric response in our stone-age psyche. Press Play now.
Think that putting a password on your WiFi network will keep away pesky leechers and hackers? Think again. Speaking at the Chaos Communications Congress, security researcher Jacob Appelbaum revealed that the NSA had a device that is able to hack your WiFi from as far as 8 miles away! In fact Appelbaum speculates that the exploits used to hack your WiFi could even be delivered by drone, but concluded that it would be simpler and possibly more discreet to use an unmarked van parked at the side of the road.
For those unfamiliar, Appelbaum is the author of the Der Spiegel article that first revealed the NSA's catalog. While the catalog in question dates back to 2007, Appelbaum believes that these tactics are still being employed by the NSA, if they haven't been improved upon and advanced over the years already. One of the examples that he gave was how Julian Assange's home at the Ecuadorian Embassy received welcome messages from a Ugandan telephone company, where the messages were later found to have originated from a foreign base station device installed on the roof, and that whoever owned it had forgotten to format the device which might have been used during an operation in Uganda.
If you'd like to learn more about the hack and some of the NSA's catalog in general, you can check out the video above in which Appelbaum delivers his findings. It's pretty long at over an hour but definitely worth taking a look at.
The NSA eavesdrops on the iPhone with ease, says security researcher
Security researcher Jacob Appelbaum claims to have discovered what he describes as "an iPhone backdoor" exploited by the National Security Agency (NSA). Appelbaum discussed the exploit during a speech he gave at this week's Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg, Germany, according to The Daily Dot.
According to a leaked document, The software, called DROPOUTJEEP, enables users to push and pull files to and from the device, retrieve SMS message, retrieve contact list data, voicemail, geolocation data, captures camera images, and more, as well as enable a "hot mic" - a microphone that will transmit audio without the user's knowledge or consent.
"You think Apple helped them with that?" asked Appelbaum. "I don't know. I hope Apple will clarify that. I think it's really important that Apple doesn't. Here's the problem: I don't really believe that Apple didn't help them. I can't prove it yet, but they [the NSA] literally claim that any time they target an iOS device, that it will succeed for implantation."
"Either they [the NSA] have a huge collection of exploits that work against Apple products, meaning that they are hoarding information about critical systems that American companies produce, and sabotaging them, or Apple sabotaged it themselves," said Appelbaum.
"Not sure which one it is; I'd like to believe that since Apple didn't join the PRISM program until after Steve Jobs died, that maybe it's just they write...that they write ****ty software. We know that's true," he said, to laughter and applause from the audience.
This is it! The year is about to come to an end and it's time to ask the big question: What is the best smartphone of 2013? Throughout the year we've had the privilege of covering a wide variety of devices, and now we want your help in deciding once and for all which should be crowned "Best of 2013".
Apple iPhone 5s 5.91% (56 votes)
BlackBerry Z10 1.05% (10 votes)
Google Nexus 5 7.38% (70 votes)
HTC One 42.19% (400 votes)
LG G2 16.03% (152 votes)
Moto G 0.42% (4 votes) Moto X 5.17% (49 votes)
Nokia Lumia 1020 3.27% (31 votes)
Samsung Galaxy S 4 4.54% (43 votes)
Samsung Galaxy Note 3 12.45% (118 votes)
Sony Xperia Z1 1.58% (15 votes)
Total Votes: 948
;-P You are smart enough to work out who the winner is.
The year 2014 is upon us, and for another week the people and experts made it clear which smartphones they prefer in the latest edition of PhoneDog's Official Smartphone Rankings. Winning a staggering 41 of 52 weeks, the HTC One was clearly the People's Choice for the year of 2013. The Samsung Galaxy Note 3 had an impressive year as well, taking the top spot in our Experts' Choice ranks for 11 straight weeks. How much longer will these two smartphones continue to dominate the OSR charts?
Disclaimer: Providers of the procedure cannot be held responsible for what happens to the device following unlocking. Users can unlock at their own risk.
Nokia Thinks HTC's New Year Resolution Should Be To Stop Infringing On Patents
As you might have heard, Nokia has recently won a series of legal battles against HTC in which several of HTC's products have since been banned from being sold and had to be taken off the shelves of retailers. Nokia has never been shy about making jibes about their competitors, as we have seen in the past from several of Nokia's advertisements, and this time it is no different. In a statement released by the Finnish company over their latest win in Germany, Nokia was pretty much all business about how they were pleased with the results of the courts which basically ruled in their favor, only to end with a humored jab at HTC, stating, "HTC's first New Year's resolution for 2014 should be to stop this free riding and compete fairly in the market."
Over the past couple of months and years, we have seen huge tech companies battle it out against one another in the courtrooms. The notable is probably the Apple vs. Samsung case which is still ongoing. We had also recently heard how Google had filed a complaint against the Rockstar patent consortium (owned by companies such as Apple and Microsoft) essentially likening them to the patent trolls that we have seen in the past. Will 2014 be any different in terms of legal battles? We doubt it, if anything the competition is just getting stiffer and we would be surprised if it were anything less.
Apple says it has no 'backdoor' in its products after a security researcher and a leaked document suggested the US National Security Agency had unfettered access to the iPhone.
This cannot be undone and I am sure it will be greatly appreciated.
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