This candle will make your room smell like a new MacBook

By Shawn Knight on October 4, 2016, 5:30 PM




One of the perks of purchasing a new vehicle is getting to enjoy that undeniable new car smell. Some new electronic devices, like a MacBook Pro, apparently give off a distinctly unique odor of their own.

It’s that scent that mobile accessory maker Twelve South claims to have “bottled up” and is now selling in the form of a candle.

Twelve South, which got its start in 2009, says on its New Mac Candle product page that the candle exhibits hints of mint, basil, peach, mandarin, sage and lavender which somehow mesh together to create the scent you get when unboxing a new Mac (you can’t make this stuff up).



It’s unclear how Twelve South came up with this concoction of ingredients. Perhaps the team used the Madeline odor camera profiled here a few years back?

The candle, hand-poured in Charleston, South Carolina, is made of 100 percent soy wax with a burn time of between 45 and 55 hours. It’ll set you back $24 and judging from the fact that it’s currently out of stock, it must be pretty popular. Twelve South says it expects more inventory to arrive later this month.

With the holiday season rapidly approaching, this could make the perfect stocking stuffer for the diehard Apple enthusiast in your life.

Yahoo built software to scan all its customers' emails for US spy agencies

By Rob Thubron on October 5, 2016, 6:15 AM


It seems there’s no end to Yahoo’s problems. Last month, the troubled company admittedthat at least 500 million user accounts had been compromised in a breach that took place in 2014. It claimed “state-sponsored actors” were responsible for the attack, though a security firm disputes this. Now, it’s been revealed that Yahoo secretly built custom software last year that scanned all of its customers’ incoming emails for information provided by US intelligence officials.

The report comes from Reuters’ Joseph Menn, citing three people familiar with the matter.

Yahoo was complying with a classified US government request when it created the scanning tool that searched hundreds of millions of user emails at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI. The software was searching for a specific string of characters, though it’s unclear exactly what words or phrases it was looking for and what data, if any, Yahoo handed over to the authorities.

When Yahoo’s internal security team discovered the software, they initial thought it was the work of hackers. Company CEO Marissa Mayer’s decision to comply with the demand led to Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos leaving his position to join Facebook in June 2015. Stamos said a programming flaw could have allowed hackers to access the stored emails.

The incident is the first known case of a company agreeing to an agency’s request to scan all arriving emails, rather than probing stored messages or a small number of accounts in real time. "Yahoo is a law-abiding company, and complies with the laws of the United States," the firm said

Apple edges out Google as the world's most valuable brand for the fourth consecutive year

By Rob Thubron on October 5, 2016, 12:45 PM




Its smartphone sales may be slipping, the iPhone 7 has been criticized for looking overly similar to last year’s model (and having no 3.5mm headphone jack), and analysts predict it will sell fewer smartwatches this year than in 2015. But despite all this, Apple has been named the most valuable brand in the world for the fourth year in a row.

Brand consultancy firm Interbrand placed Apple at number one with a brand valuation of $178.1 billion, a five percent increase from last year. Rival Google sits behind the Cupertino company with a brand valuation of $133.2 billion, eleven percent higher than in 2015.

Technology companies take up ten of the top twenty places on the list. Microsoft sits behind Coca-Cola in fourth place with a $72.7 billion brand value, up eight percent over the last 12 months. Further down the top ten is IBM; it may have dropped nineteen percent from last year, but the industry giant's $52.5 billion brand value places it at number six.

A fourteen percent increase in 2016 puts Samsung beneath IBM at number seven with a brand value of $51.8 billion, while Amazon, which saw its stock pass the $800 milestone for the first time last month, is at number eight. The online retailer's brand value increased a massive 33 percent this year to $50.3 billion.

The other tech firms in the top 20 are Intel at fourteen ($36 billion, +4 percent), Facebook at fifteen ($32.5 billion, +48 percent), Cisco at sixteen ($30.9 billion, +4 percent), and Oracle at seventeen ($26.5 billion, -3 percent).



Two companies have joined the list this year: Tesla at number 100 ($4 billion) and Dior at 89 ($4.9 billion).

Facebook and Amazon experienced the biggest growth in brand value across 2016 – 48 percent and 33 percent, respectively.

Writing about Apple’s success, Interbrand noted: “Apple shows how ecosystems drive value. Analysts have often pointed out that ‘Apple has superior products.’ While true, this opinion undersells the brilliance of Apple’s functionally- integrated model. Its software, hardware, and touchpoints are connected not just by beautiful design aesthetics, but by a level of interoperability that justifies the Apple premium and discourages defections to another platform. And the more data you share, the more personal it becomes— adding new devices is painless and the thought of switching increasingly unpromising. Apple is the Alpha of Cohesiveness in full effect.”

The first Project Tango AR smartphone arrives next month

By Jose Vilches on October 5, 2016, 1:45 PM



Google may putting all its weight behind the new Pixel smartphones as it moves to become a full-fledged, vertically integrated device maker — controlling hardware, software, and ecosystem design. But that doesn't mean it has forgotten about its other, niche smartphone projects. According to Cnet, the company’s first commercially-available Tango phone will go on sale next month, as confirmed by Google’s head of VR and AR Clay Bavor.

The Lenovo-made Phab 2 Pro uses depth sensing 3D camera system that scans the world around you to deliver augmented reality experiences. It can do things like scan real world objects and bring them into a virtual world, and it can position itself in a room via motion tracking while using the included fisheye camera to identify edges and corners, which can be used to build a three-dimensional map of indoor spaces.



Spec-wise, the handset features a huge 6.4-inch Quad HD (2,560 x 1,440) IPS curved glass display, a Qualcomm quad-core Snapdragon 652 SoC alongside 4GB of RAM, a 4,050mAh battery and 64GB of local flash storage expandable via microSD card slot.

Around back you’ll find a 16-megapixel camera and a fish-eye camera as well as depth and motion tracking sensors that are necessary to make Tango’s magic work, alongside a series of sensors under the hood. Other features include dual SIM slots, a fingerprint reader, a front-facing eight megapixel camera, dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, triple-array active noise cancellation and Dolby Atmos audio technology.

The Phab 2 Pro was supposed to arrive in September but got delayed for unspecified reasons. It should sell for $499 unlocked in your choice of gray or gold aluminum finish. As Cnet points out, only the Google Pixel phones will be compatible with the Daydream VR headset, not the Phab2 Pro. The latter is all about augmented reality.

Learn all about ethical hacking with the Computer Hacker Professional Certification Package

By TechSpot Deals on October 5, 2016, 7:45 AM


With the Computer Hacker Professional Certification Package you can prepare to ace five certification exams that are sure to make you shine brighter than the competition. This package comes with prep materials for the following exams:
Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH)
Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator (CHFI)
Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)
Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA)
Certified Information Systems Security Pro (CISSP)

Dive into over 60 hours of training as you learn how to sniff out network vulnerabilities by breaching them yourself. You’ll familiarize yourself with the legal standards behind handling forensic evidence, and you’ll discover how to review forensic data using tools like Access Data’s Forensic Toolkit, EnCase, and more.

For a limited time, the Computer Hacker Professional Certification Package is on sale for over 90% off its $1,499 retail price, taking the final price down to just $59.

Google releases a Quick Switch Adapter to help you transfer data from iPhone to Pixel

By tech2 News Staff /  05 Oct 2016 , 13:15

The Google Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones were announced at the ‘Made By Google’ event in San Francisco. Pre-order for these devices will start from 13 Oct on Flipkart, Croma and Reliance Digital along with the Google store. The base model is priced at Rs 57,000.

In order to make switching from an iPhone to a Pixel easier, Google has bundled in a Quick Switch Adapter. While switching between Android phones is easier since your data is backed up on your Google account, doing that from an iPhone can get a bit more time consuming.

You will need to use the old data cable of your iPhone, with one end connected to the lightning port and the other USB port connected to the adapter which is connected to the USB Type C port on the Google Pixel/PixelXL.

Once the connection is established, the Pixel smartphone will guide you through a set of instructions on how to go about. The transfer process is compatible with iPhones as well as iPads which run iOS version 8 and above.

You will need to switch off iMesssages and FaceTime from your iOS settings before removing the SIM card from the iPhone/iPad. You also need to ensure that the Pixel/PixelXL is at least 50 percent charged before the transfer process begins. In the process you are asked to log into your Google account and you are asked what all you want to transfer between the phones. Options include contacts, calendar events, photos, videos, music, SMS messages and iMessages.

Newly appointed FBI head in San Francisco, Jack Bennett was a key figure in iPhone hack

Image Credit: REUTERS

  05 Oct 2016 , 13:40

Special Agent Jack Bennett was at the FBI’s computer investigation lab in Quantico, Virginia, on a Sunday in March when an outside company showed the bureau how it could hack into an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. The tool would end the FBI’s high-profile fight with Apple over access to the phone, but Bennett said there was no celebration.

“There wasn’t high fives, and there weren’t people singing down the hallways,” he recalled. “It was very much business. ‘OK, let’s move forward to the next steps. Let’s get on the phone. What do we need to do to purchase the tool?'” The iPhone fight exposed a rift between the FBI and Silicon Valley technology companies over encryption, and sparked a debate about the right balance between privacy and national security. Bennett, 52, was a key figure in that battle as head of the bureau’s digital forensics labs, which extract evidence from computers and other devices and were tasked with accessing the San Bernardino shooter’s phone.

Bennett is now in charge of the agency’s San Francisco division, where he views his role, in part, as trying to bridge the divide between Silicon Valley and the FBI. He took over as special agent in charge of San Francisco in May after nearly 30 years in law enforcement. He started his career as a narcotics investigator with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and did a stint with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration eradicating cocaine smuggling operations in South America.

He has investigated child sex crimes and animal rights extremists for the FBI and previously served as an assistant special agent in San Francisco. “The U.S. government sometimes loses sight of what is important to corporations … and privacy is incredibly important,” Bennett said during a recent interview at his office, where a Thompson submachine gun like the type used by agents in the 1930s sits in a glass display case on a coffee table.

Still, he was unapologetic about the bureau’s desire to access the phone. “We were pretty surprised that this turned in such a way that it became this national debate,” Bennett said. “It was never intended to be. … We were trying to get on one phone because we had 14 murdered people.”

The fight between Apple Inc. and the FBI centered on the work-issued iPhone 5c of Syed Rizwan Farook, who with his wife killed 14 people at a 2015 holiday gathering of county workers. The U.S. Justice Department demanded that Apple create software to bypass security features on the phone.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the FBI was asking his company to create a “back door” that could be used to unlock other phones, exposing customer data. Agreeing to the FBI’s demand would set a dangerous precedent that could lead to