Neat iOS 8 feature pulls Maps data into iPhone's 'Recents' list
The fifth version of the iOS 8 beta, currently in the hands of Apple's army of developers, has revealed a minor, but neat new feature which improves the synchronicity of the Maps and Phone apps.
An AppleInsider reader discovered when users call a business like a restaurant from within the Maps app, that information will be transferred to the Recents tab within the iPhone's phone app.
Not only is the number listed, but the name of the establishment too. Tapping on the listing will also bring up the location on a smaller map, the address of the business, it's web page and even the Yelp scores.
The idea appears to be to make it easier for iPhone users to easily save their favourite places to the contacts or have the ability to easily redial without searching all over again.
Refined
iOS 8 was announced by Apple at WWDC in June and is currently being tested by developers and refined by Apple ahead of a launch this autumn.The operating system will arrive alongside the iPhone 6, but will be installable across a wide range of iPhones, iPads and iPod touch media players. You can find out which here.
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Samsung Galaxy Alpha specs 'confirmed' in line with the endless speculation
A purported spec sheet for the the long-rumoured, but not-all-that-exciting Samsung Galaxy Alpha has emerged online showing everything to be pretty much in line with the reams of speculation so far.
A picture, claimed to be from Samsung's own marketing materials, shows the 4.7-inch handset as having a 1280 x 720 Super AMOLED display.
The device will also run on the homemade Exynos octo-core processor, with CPUs running at 1.8GHz and 1.3GHz, according to the picture, which also alleges 2GB of RAM and up to 32 GB of storage.
There'll be a 12-megapixel rear camera and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing camera according to the source Tecmundo, which also claims a 64GB model will the sold in store.
IFA-bound?
The snap also shows the Alpha as rocking Android 4.4 KitKat, Bluetooth 4.0, USB 3.0 connectivity and expandable storage through a MicroSD card.All of that is very much in line with recent speculation. All that really remains now is for Samsung to announce the device.
It now seems likely the firm will wait until the IFA tech show kicks off in Berlin in the first week of September, where the Galaxy Note 4 will almost certainly make its bow.
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Windows Phone users now have 300,000 apps to choose from
The number of apps in the Windows Phone store has nearly doubled in the past year, Microsoft has confirmed.
The firm announced the app catalogue had swelled to 300,000 as per the end of June 2014, up 94 per cent on a year ago.
That's an increase of 100,000 in the six months following December 2013, when the tally stood at 200,000.
In even better news for fans of the Live Tile-powered operating system, the number of active developers has also grown by 50 per cent.
High profile launches
While the numbers will be a boon for Microsoft and it's userbase, it's perhaps the type of apps arriving in the last few months that shows the greater promise for the third-placed OS.FitBit launched on the platform last month making its wristbands, such as the FitBit Flex, the first popular fitness trackers to be compatible with Windows Phone.
BlackBerry's BBM app also arrived in Beta form, while the popular ride-sharing app Uber also launched on the platform.
Most users would prefer quality over quantity, but it seems Microsoft could be on the way to having both.
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Gary Marshall: 25 Google search tips and tricks you need to know
Google tips and tricks: 1 - 15
Everybody knows Google, but not everybody knows its secrets, the little things that make finding what you want faster, that make searches more specific and that uncover entertaining Easter eggs.Here are 25 of our favourite ways to find Google's G spots.
1. Use search operators
Google does a pretty good job of working out what you're looking for, but the more specific you are the better your results will be.Using operators does just that, so for example enclosing a phrase in quotation marks - "like this" - searches for that specific phrase, adding a minus sign excludes that word (salsa recipe -tomatoes) and using OR gives Google a choice, eg. World Cup location 2014 or 2022.
2. Search a single site
You can restrict your search to a single website by using the site: operator, so for example if you wanted to look for Android content on TechRadar you might type android site:techradar.com.3. Get definitions
The define: operator, as you might expect, gives you definitions - so define:search gives you the dictionary definition of search and synonyms such as hunt, look, scout and dig.4. Do sums and currency conversions
You probably already know that Google will carry out sums if you type them in the search box - 4*15 gives you 60, 2*2*3*4 gives you 48 and an on-screen calculator and so on - but it can also convert units and currencies. convert 200 usd to gbp converts dollars to pounds, and you can also convert measurements such as distance, weight and temperature.5. Get essential info, fast
Type weather and you'll see the current conditions and a seven-day forecast; add the name of a town to get the weather report from a different location. Type flight BA1491 to see the status of a flight, time New York to see the local time in that location, sunrise London to see when the sun's coming up or GOOG to see Google's stock information.
6. Search by location
If you type a generic term such as "Italian restaurant", Google will show you results in and around your current location along with a map showing where they are. If you'd rather be more specific, enter the postcode at the end of your query - so for example fish and chips BA1 2BW shows the chippies in and around central Bath.7. Filter your image search
Some terms produce all kinds of search results, so for example an image search for "heather" brings you plants, Heather Graham and Heather from EastEnders. Google will offer to filter those results for you - so for example our search for heather gives us the options "plant", "flower", "eastenders", "scottish" and so on.
You can use the Search Tools button to filter by size, colour, type - such as photos of people or illustrations, time and whether you can use the photos without payment. Remember your operators too: heather -graham produces a screen full of Heathers but no Heather Graham.
8. See sites that aren't online
Google's cache keeps copies of sites it's looked at, so if they're down you can still see them by using the cache: operator - so cache:techradar.com would display TechRadar if for some reason our server wasn't working. The same operator can sometimes catch sneaky "ninja edits", where sites correct appalling, offensive or hilarious mistakes: you'll often find the uncorrected original in the cache.9. See what's on
Fancy a film? movie times Glasgow tells you what's on in that particular city, and if you use a specific cinema name such as movie times Odeon Quay you'll see what's on in that particular cinema.10. Use your voice
If you're using Chrome, Android or the Google iOS app, you can search by voice: press or click on the microphone icon and tell Google what you're looking for.11. Check spellings
Not sure how to spell something? Type it into the search box and unless you really mangle it, Google will show you the correct spelling, its definition, and synonyms you might find easier to spell.12. Filter your web search
If you click on Search Tools you'll see four filtering options: the country, so for example here in the UK you can search anywhere or limit your results to UK websites; the date and/or time of publication, ranging from the last hour to the last year; by reading level; and whether Google should use your current location.13. Find out what links to what
It's easy to discover who's linking to your site, or to any other page you want to know about: just use the link: operator. link:techradar.com tells you who's linking to us.14. Find similar sites
Here's another handy operator: related. This one helps you find pages that are similar to one you already know about, so for example related:techradar.com tells you about our sister site T3 and some of our rivals.15. Get nutritional information
More Google tips and tricks: 16 - 25
16. Search between two numbers
You can restrict Google's search to a specific number range by using two dots, such as 1914..1918 or $250..$350. Annoyingly the financial one doesn't recognise UK pounds: if you type £100..£150 you'll get results in the $100-$150 range instead.17. Find specific files
The filetype: operator enables you to search for specific kinds of file, such as Word documents or PDFs. Google indexes most things, so it's just a matter of dropping the dot from the file extension and searching for filetype:xml, filetype:svg or filetype:cs. It's important to note that Google only searches for the file extension, so an XML document that isn't saved with the .xml extension won't show up in a filetype:xml search.18. Find apps
You can bring Google's search powers to the world of smartphone apps by clicking More > Apps at the top of the results page. That's particularly handy for Android users, as Android can install apps you select from the Google Play website using your desktop browser.19. Customise your search settings
Google enables you to customise your search results in several ways. You can use SafeSearch to filter explicit results (and lock it so the kids can't go in to your search settings and switch it off again), turn Google's instant results off, increase the number of results you get per page and make selected search results open in a new window when you click on them.20. Personalise your search settings
If you let it, Google can record your search history and provide access to it on any device. There are several benefits to doing so: you'll get more relevant results because Google knows more about you, you'll get better search predictions, and you can search your history for stuff you've looked for previously. Google even organises it into categories such as shopping, news, images and travel. The downside, of course, is that it also records anything dodgy or embarrassing you might have looked for.21. Translate from one language to another
Need to translate something in a hurry? Just type translate language A language B (where language A is the language you're translating from and language B the language you're translating to) and you'll see a big friendly translator at the top of the page.
22. See what others are searching for
Google Trends shows you what others in your country are searching for, with occasionally puzzling results: at the time of writing the UK is interested in Boris Johnson, FIFA 15 and Vitamin D. Google even provides a screensaver that shows you real-time searches - presumably with filtering to screen out the scary stuff.23. See Google's best doodles
If you click I'm Feeling Lucky without entering any search criteria Google will take you to its collection of doodles, the customised logos it uses to mark important dates24. Uncover Easter eggs
If you search for google in 1998 you'll see Google as it was when it first launched. It's not the only Google Easter egg: searching do the harlem shake in YouTube makes the screen dance while do a barrel roll will spin the screen around. In maps, getting directions from Fort Augustus to Urquhart Castle in Scotland enables you to travel by Loch Ness Monster, and a trip from Snowdon to the Brecon Beacons in Wales gives you the option of travelling by dragon.
25. Do everything in a single screen
Google's Advanced Search page enables you to use many of its most useful features without having to remember the operators that make them work - so you can enter number ranges, specify the exact words to look for, filter by language, date, reading level, file type or usage rights, restrict your search to a particular site or domain… you get the idea.- Google isn't just about searching anymore, it also does eyewear, smartphones and even your central heating.
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Inflame: Another case of password theft leaves commenters feeling hacked off
Turns out it doesn't really matter how many uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers or words about horses you have in your internet passwords, as most of them have been hacked and stolen anyway.
News this week suggested that an amazing 1.2billion email addresses and passwords have been harvested by hacking group CyberVors, which poked insecure servers with a malware botnet (and perhaps bought in more stolen data from other hackers) resulting in the biggest data collection in the history of hacks.
If true, and not the exaggerations of anti-Russian NSA plants (more on that later), it means a significant percentage of the world's population now faces the prospect of someone else knowing their login details.
So it's time to change passwords again. And seeing as they're bound to be hacked, stolen, intercepted or guessed at some point in the future, we may as well all use 88888888 or qwertyuiop to save time logging in.
1Password to rule them all
On the Independent, reader DaveW started throwing around the F-word to describe people that don't adequately protect their special words and logins online, saying: "There are 100s of programs that protect passwords while on a user's computer, along with other software designed to protect one's computer, laptop, tablet, etc. Those that don't have them are fools."The old pre-internet saying about a chain only being as strong as its weakest link was reinterpreted in response by Bornslippy, who replied with: "Unfortunately none of them will protect you if, for example, someone hacks into your email provider and steals your password from their database."
"Nothing is 100% in life, but that's not an excuse for doing nothing," DaveW replied, transforming from furious tech guru to motivational speaker and life coach in the space of a few hours.
Tool injection
On The Register, conversation turned to SQL security matters. We scrolled past that lot.Reader Paul Crawford had something interesting to say about why spam and password hacking is still such a massive industry, though, asking of our so-called security services: "One could well ask what NSA/GCHQ has done to protect us. They should have known of such insecurities, so are either incompetent at their jobs (unlikely), view the protection of consumers against such scams as beneath them, or have such a warped paranoid world-view that maintaining hacking capabilities is more important than actually protecting us (most likely)."
A thought-provoking idea, bettered by Anonymous Coward who responded with: "Or one could also wonder what they have already protected us from that we don't know about? Most security is behind-the-scenes. In the days when Belfast was suffering from car bombs & similar incidents, the ones that went off were the ones that slipped through the net, a much larger number were stopped before they became a real problem. Of course those ones never made the BBC News. Security is a thankless task."
Reader Marketing Hack is on the side of the conspiracy theorists, suggesting: "Unfortunately, what we have learned from the Snowden leaks is that there is a good chance that the NSA/GCHQ knew about these vulnerabilities and didn't do anything about them, because it gives them an avenue to penetrate some of these corporations/websites when they want to."
Have a crack
The sheer size of the password sample has some serious ramifications for the future of all online security, according to Ars Technica reader Bluefinger, who posted: "Having access to 1.2 billion potential passwords and password combinations means they have some serious data samples to analyse over and convert into better algorithmic approaches to password cracking."He expanded with the chilling thought that it's going to lead to sentient hacking software able to guess our thoughts, suggesting: "It is a big enough sample size to start accounting for quirks of human memorisation/thought process, simply by virtue of having enough data to form patterns. This is the sort of thing a data scientist would love to get their hands on just to see what sort of patterns they can find."
So the future of hacking is intelligent malware that scans your MP3 collection and uses snippets of lyrics from your most-played songs until one clicks, or scans your Instagram page for beloved pet names and uses those to bust open your Gmail.
Blame Russia
Or, if you listen to VentureBeat reader Owen Brunette, the whole affair is just some fluff piece that came into being because a security firm sent out a press release. He says: "It reads as just another nonsense security story from a PR person at a security company. This one's called Hold Security. The NYT went along with it maybe because Russian things are spicy this week, or somebody somewhere in the chain was fed the story this week for more foreign policy reasons."And independent security expert Bruce Schneier agrees, saying on his personal blog that it's largely a case of hype gone wild. Commenter Who Benefits thinks it's even simpler than that, and is nothing more than a cloaked an attack on all things Russian, saying: "This story may be a disinformation operation designed to cancel news surrounding Snowden's residency extension in Russia. It neatly steals focus from Snowden while smearing all things generally connected with Russia, hackers, and infosec professionals."
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