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Guest author David Cannington is co-founder of audio wearables company Nuheara.

Recently, at the annual Dreamforce Conference in San Francisco, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella declared a new era in computing defined by wearable devices. “People keep asking the question what’s next after the smartphone? There are early signs of it, things you wear on your wrists, in your ear and on your eyes,” he said. 

See also: Fitness Wearables Are Not Reaching The Right Users—But They Could 

The industry has been foaming at the mouth over wrist tech, such as smartwatches and fitness trackers, and smart eyewear, like virtual or augmented reality goggles. Gizmos worn in the ear, however, haven’t been quite so trendy.

But this high-profile nod to such “hearables” (or wearable technology worn in the ear) and other signs suggest that could change before long.

The Rise Of Hearables

Like the Microsoft CEO, industry analysts and experts also acknowledge the rise of “hearables.”

Back in 2014, when the term “hearables” got coined and started gaining more traction, analyst Nick Hunn predicted it would be a $5 billion industry by 2018 and a major factor in the overall wearables market.

Since then a number of startups have launched crowdfunding campaigns for hearable products. Although many of these products have yet to ship, businesses like Bragi and Doppler Labs have gone on to raise significant funding rounds on the back of successful crowdfunding campaigns.

The space is clearly catching the eye of the investment community. As reported in Techcrunch, Crunchbase data confirms that nine venture capital–funded and crowdfunded “hearable” companies captured nearly $52 million in funding since 2009.

This financial backing of the hearables sector looks like a very positive sign of things to come.

Hearables Are Not Just Another Headset

With new market categories, it can take time for companies to define the winning product-market fit. This is especially true with consumer-facing companies who are catering to people with rapidly changing needs and preferences.

Hearables are more than just variations on existing headsets. The market is already overcrowded with headsets, and existing models tend to have limited technology differentiation for audio quality or noise cancellation capabilities.

The new crop of ear-oriented devices boast advancements that could create new opportunities and solve a wide range of consumer problems, beyond just taking calls or listening to music. Think sensors, intelligent use of microphones, audio digital-signal processing, smart battery miniaturization and other technologies more commonly associated with computers, not headsets.

Fundamentally, it will be the proprietary software and the smarts that reside inside these hearable devices that will deliver the power to solve real consumer problems and define this new hearables product category.

Hearables Segmentation

New hearables companies are targeting a range of consumer needs with varying technologies, making for an early segmentation of the market. These distinctions may offer a snap shot into how the industry will unfold in the coming years.

Bragi’s Dash product targets the sports market with sound management, biometric measurements and waterproof features. Doppler Labs' product, Here, caters to young, hip music lovers with “a sound studio in your ears” that gives them better audio controls. We’re taking a different approach with our IQbuds product, an "intelligent hearing solution” that lets (primarily older) users control audio from their digital world, as well as environmental sound.

Although all three companies use some components of each other’s technology stack, we aim to drive adoption and consumer loyalty by going after separate consumer segments with a differentiated product-market fit.

New hearables companies are betting that functionality embedded in small in-ear devices, powered by apps, will win over consumers. So it's less about the quality of the sound or clearer phone calls, and more about how miniaturized technology stacks can deliver a better quality of life for users.

The Future

Today, most smart devices work with some kind of headset. As the connected gadgets market continues to grow globally, it stands to reason that the hearables market will follow.

If there’s one thing with the greatest potential to accelerate this niche, it may be voice technology. Voice recognition apps are getting better, smarter and more versatile in their ability to deliver solutions to both consumers and companies, and they require a best-of-breed hearing platform.

The growth of smart devices combined with the new voice-enabled world represents significant business and technological opportunities for the hearables market, which seems set to become a major force in the wearables market. It may even overtake wrist-worn activity trackers in the years to come.

The sector will definitely be one worth watching, as hearables companies apply technology innovation to solve consumer problems in this ever more connected world. 

Lead photo by Ike Valdez 

Welcome to the roundup of the best new Android applications, games, and live wallpapers that went live in the Play Store or were spotted by us in the previous 2 weeks or so.

Games

Minecraft: Story Mode

Android Police coverage: Minecraft: Story Mode From TellTale Games Launches On Google Play And The Amazon Appstore

Minecraft doesn't lend itself towards storytelling.

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34 New And Notable (And 1 WTF) Android Games From The Last 2 Weeks (10/13/15 - 10/27/15) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

In a 74 to 21 vote, the Senate has voted to pass the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act, a bill that privacy advocates have long argued will quietly give the government invasive spying powers. The House has already passed similar legislation, and the two versions will now be reconciled before being sent to President Obama.

"This vote will go down in history as the moment that lawmakers decided not only what sort of Internet our children and our children's children will have, but what sort of world they will live in," Fight for the Future, a digital rights advocacy group, said in a statement.

A series of amendments for the bill were introduced Tuesday that would have altered some of the most controversial parts, but those were...

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Google Play Music helps connect people with the perfect soundtrack for whatever they’re doing—whether they’re stuck in rush hour traffic, staying up late with friends or lifting weights at the gym. But what if that same technology and curation could help connect people with great podcasts based on their mood or interest—something to make them laugh, get lost in a story or learn something new? We thought that would be awesome, so we plan to start offering podcasts on Google Play Music, giving podcasters access to millions of new listeners on Android phones and tablets.

To that end, today we’re launching a portal for podcasters to start uploading their shows to Google Play Music before we open up the service to listeners. Along with direct searches and browsing for podcasts, the service will connect new listeners with podcasts based on what they’re doing, how they’re feeling, or what they’re interested in. Similar to our contextual playlists for music, this will give podcast fans and new listeners a way of finding and listening to content that’s unique to Google Play Music. Podcasters in the US can start uploading shows now at g.co/podcastportal.

The European Parliament has voted to allow the telcos who supply European Internet access to hold their customers to ransom. When Europeans request data from Web sites and services that didn't pay the ransom, EU rules will let telcos slow down the reply, while traffic between bribe-paying customers and Europeans will flow at normal speeds. (more…)

Flatulence is perfectly natural, but when it happens in public, you’d do anything to avoid the embarrassment. Whether they’re silent and deadly or loud and proud, here are the most dastardly ways to pass gas around others and slip away like a fart ninja.

This post is part of our Evil Week series at Lifehacker, where we look at the dark side of getting things done. Sometimes evil is justified, and other times, knowing evil means knowing how to beat it. Want more? Check out our evil week tag page.

http://lifehacker.com/welcome-to-lif...

Perfect Your Crop Dusting Technique

Crop dusting is the act of farting on the move. It might seem rude to fart and run, but it’s every man for himself in this world, and if you can get out of where you are quickly, you won’t have to deal with any of the aftermath. If you’re not stuck in a room with people, Erin Gloria Ryan at Jezebel suggests you release once you get walking:

If you must fart and there’s no hope for private relief in sight, do so when you’re on the move. Don’t linger in the cloud or return to the scene of the crime. If you pass gas in your cubicle, immediately get up and leave your cubicle, lest your chattiest coworker decide that now’s a great time to have a talk and what is that smell? Is that Ukranian food? If you’re on the train, fart and then make your way to the other end of the car. Leave the gas, take the canoli. Farting is kind of like murder or organized crime in that way.

While you’re on the move, Ryan also recommends you use whatever you can to cover up the smell so it doesn’t follow you:

You can try to mitigate the smell — for example, if you carry scented lotion in your purse, take it out right after you fart and start nonchalantly applying some to your hands. Nothing to see here. Just a lady passing gas and moisturizing...

Perfume, cologne, deodorant, chapstick, gum, and even cigarettes (if you’re desperate) can help cover the smell up. It’s better to smell overwhelmingly like perfume than fart, right?

http://jezebel.com/5843978/master...

Depending on where you are, some places are better to crop dust than others. There are three types of ideal crop dusting locations: places that are private and blocked off, places that smell good, and places that smell bad. If you can steal away to an empty stairwell, you can fart without a care in the world. If you’re at the supermarket, you can take a stroll down the shampoo aisle, or browse the seafood section and break some wind. Areas around trash cans are also good targets because people expect them to stink already.

If you’re on a date, your crop dusting options can be pretty limited, but there are a couple go-tos. In the video above, YouTuber nigahiga recommends what he calls “the gentleman”: Open your date’s car door for them and let it all out while you make your way to your side of the car. If you don’t have an opportunity for that, there’s always the classic “delay”: Tell whoever you’re with to lead the way and follow behind, crop dusting out of harm’s way.

http://lifehacker.com/how-to-deal-wi...

Win the Blame Game

If you can’t escape, you might have to blame someone else. The key is to keep your cool, fart as quietly as possible, and follow what P.J. Whitehill, the author of Catch That and Paint it Purple: A Complete Guide to Farting, calls “the rule of three or more.” The bigger the crowd you can find the better, but there must at least be three people in the area before you should even try pass off your fart as someone else’s. As Whitehill explains, however, you’re not exactly trying to prove someone else farted:

You only need to create the aura of suspicion. Quite often, the protestations of the innocent party being blamed only make them look more guilty. If your patsy starts hanging themselves, just sit back and let them do your job for you.

To create such an environment, the folks at LovePanky suggest you should act disgusted, but wait for your cue:

...wait for others around you to sniff a little. Once you see they have their faces in disgust, it’s up to you to react too. This is your cue. Slowly, screw up your face and put your index and thumb finger up to your nostrils. This will show your disgust and will instantly prove your innocence...

As the saying goes, “whoever smelt it, dealt it.” So if you want to play it off like the smell is a surprise, do not be the first to point it out. Furthermore, you’re much more likely to succeed at passing the blame if you can stand near someone that others would assume to be the culprit. YouTuber The Amyzing Life Guide recommends standing near a baby or a small toddler before letting one rip. Just be sure they can’t talk, because as Alex Iwashyna at Late Enough explains, most young children have no problem acknowledging one’s flatulence or drawing attention to the smell in question. Other great patsies include senior citizens, dogs, or anyone dressed in filthy clothes. People tend to assume things, so use that to your advantage. Look around the area you’re in and ask yourself who you would assume is the farter, and go with them.

Sometimes you can’t keep your farts silent, however. In that situation, you have two options: own up to it, or blame it directly on your patsy. Blaming it on someone directly takes some courage, but if you say the right things and deliver it properly, your patsy will be getting defensive in no time. The video above, from the Howcast YouTube channel, uses the perfect example of a yoga class, where people unintentionally pass gas regularly. If you try to keep your fart silent and it ends up making noise, reach out to the person closest to you and say, “don’t worry about it, it happens to everyone,” then go back to what you were doing. Redditor tinkywinky86 gives another great example:

This is a good one for the surprise fart that you had zero prep time for. It’s a tough one to pull off, because you must commit 100% to blaming the person you choose. Once you fart, turn without hesitation to the person closest to your back side and with a quick glare shout out “Really!!!???” If you act offended enough, you can pull this off.

The key is commitment and really believing what you’re saying. If you don’t think you can stick to your guns, you’re better off apologizing for your smell or saying nothing at all.

http://lifehacker.com/the-most-commo...

Save Your Elevator Farts for When the Doors Open

Elevators are by far the most difficult places to fart and not get caught. Everyone is cramped together, nobody is talking, and there is no air flow. That being said, there’s still a way to fart on the sly. The folks at Bubble News recommend one very simple rule: only fart when the door opens. During that time, three important things happen:

1. The elevator and doors make noise
2. People go out
3. New people come in

If you fart when the doors open, you can cover up the noise, and the blame could easily land on the jerk that farted and ran, or the jerk who waited until they were on the elevator. At that point, do what Jonathan Beck at Quora suggests, and remain silent to maintain plausible deniability. Everyone will suspect everyone, but no one will know for certain that it was you.

Image by Nick Criscuolo.

 Despite months of major fluctuations in the Chinese stock market, Apple still managed to have an outstanding quarter in China. During its fourth quarter, the company saw 99% year-over-year revenue growth in the Greater China region, which accounts for the company’s sales in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. In this final fiscal quarter of 2015, Apple’s revenue in… Read More

HTC's Re Camera was a bit of a non-starter upon its release a year ago, but that mostly came down to one thing: price. At that level, HTC was taking on GoPro, and it's no surprise it didn't come out on top. But the Re Camera itself is actually a really fun, unique product, and you might want to give it a second look now that it's on sale for just $50 at HTC's own store.

If you need your memory refreshed, the Re Camera is a small, waterproof action camera shaped like a periscope; it's like a GoPro, but easier to use when held in your hand. It has a 146-degree wide-angle lens, a 16-megapixel 1/2.3-inch sensor, and works with an app that lets you use your Android phone or iPhone as a viewfinder.

The image quality isn't going to impress...

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The EU has rejected legal amendments that would firmly establish and protect the concept of net neutrality in Europe. The European Parliament voted in favor of the new regulation which proponents says creates an internet "without discrimination," but advocates for net neutrality say the laws contain a number of loopholes which could lead to the creation of a tiered internet service. The legislation also included an end to roaming charges in Europe, although some critics say those laws too are less robust than they appear.

The new legislation allows the creation of internet fast lanes for "specialized services" and lets ISPs offer so-called "zero-rating" products — i.e. apps and services that don't count towards monthly data allowances —...

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The European Parliament today passed a law that will put an end to mobile roaming fees by 2017. The law was approved as part of a larger legislative package that also sought to strengthen net neutrality protections across the European Union, but which failed to close major loopholes that could be exploited to create internet "fast lanes."

The ban on roaming charges enjoyed broad support within the European Parliament, and was widely expected to pass. Under the measure, it will be illegal for telecoms to charge roaming fees for calls, text messages, and data as of June 15th, 2017. Consumers will instead pay the same rates they would in their home countries. As of April 30th, 2016, roaming charges will be capped at €0.05 per minute for...

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Google is introducing its second OnHub router today, this one made in partnership with Asus. Google first launched its OnHub router series in August, attempting to make a router that's easy to use and provides better Wi-Fi signal than what people are used to. This second model continues toward that goal with a similar design and a couple interesting new features, including the ability to wave your hand overtop of the router to have it prioritize Wi-Fi to a specific device, like a Chromecast that you're currently watching a movie on. The router will also be able to select the best antennas to send Wi-Fi over depending on the location of the devices it's connected to; that feature will also be rolling out to the original OnHub, which is...

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Following in the footsteps of Spotify, Google Play Music will soon begin offering podcasts through its service, as first reported by Recode. Google says it will offer contextual podcast recommendations, offering up podcasts based on what you're currently doing or your interests, which could help separate Google Play Music from the plethora of apps and services offering up podcasts these days.

The company has not said when podcasts will become available on Google Play Music yet — for now, it's trying to add as many podcasters (for now US only) as possible before the launch happens. With over a dozen podcasts and networks like 5by5, HBO, Nerdist, and StartTalk Radio already committed to the service, it shouldn't bee too much longer before...

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Android/iOS: Today, Facebook announced that your mobile notifications will get a huge overhaul. In addition to a new look, Facebook is adding information like sports scores, reminders, and tons more.

The update looks like Facebook is trying to reframe your notifications tab as a home for all the information you might need right now. If you use Facebook regularly, you probably already get notifications about your events or birthdays. Facebook will make those cleaner, as well as adding info for things like local events, weather updates, movies, and nearby restaurants.

The video above shows Facebook’s notifications looking less like a notification list and more like, well, Google Now. There are your regular social network notifications, but there are also sections for information you might need. It’s unclear whether all of these new things will be treated like notifications that buzz your phone now (I think we can all agree we don’t need our phones to buzz in the middle of the night because the weather changed), but Facebook clearly wants to repurpose this tab to something more active.

A More Useful Notifications Tab on Mobile | Facebook

https://youtu.be/ibUzDIWhsFg

It's a few years old, actually, but this video of a cute baby owl "dancing" to a fuzzy owl-shaped comforting toy that sings “Monster Mash” is well deserving of a viral revival. (more…)

The BBC quoted an anonymous Saudi source who insisted that the arms the country imports en masse from the UK are only funnelled to the good Syrian rebels and not the Al Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front. (more…)

How compositional rules can help or hinder your composition

Creating good photographs, and becoming a good photographer, is in general, not just about learning about your camera and all the rules of composition. These help, but while you should know your camera and have a good knowledge of technique, the biggest challenge you need to give yourself is learning to expand your perception, of the world and learn to see the world as it really is. Our minds are basically full of distractions – endless thoughts about our needs, wants, and to do lists. It’s a bit like living in a bubble which you need to break out of, so that you are fully able to see what’s happening around you, and not be distracted by your mind.

“It takes a lot of imagination to be a good photographer. You need less imagination to be a painter because you can invent things. But in photography everything is so ordinary; it takes a lot of looking before you learn to see the extraordinary.” – David Bailey

I think the rules of composition, and in particular the Rule of Thirds, are a great way to develop your perception. It’s not a rule you should learn and then overlay on all of your images, or your view of the world.

For me rules are a way to train your eye, so that eventually you can unleash its wild creativity. The creativity that is totally unique to you and exists in no other person.

Rules of composition:

• Do work and help you create excellent compositions – but don’t use them all the time (don’t use anything all of the time)
• Help you develop your perception and train your eye to see the wonders of the world
• Create harmony between your subject and its setting

My philosophy with rules is always, “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” (Picasso said that by the way, not me).

Use them like a tool box

I like to think of the rules of composition as a little tool box that you can draw from in different ways, and in different variations. They aren’t always necessary, but they are super useful for helping your mind be both disciplined and focused, as well as creative, free, and wild.

So – what is the Rule of Thirds?

I love the rule of thirds because it’s a very simple, and easy concept to understand. It’s one of the key compositional rules (others include: leading lines and natural framing) that many photographers use to enhance their compositions. Although it can be tricky initially to bring it into your photos, once you start composing using the Rule of Thirds, it will immediately give your photographs a feeling of flow and depth; as well as helping them look balanced, creating an easy path for the eye of the viewer.

The rule of thirds breaks the image up into nine equal squares. Where the lines intersect we call these Points of Interest. The rule works by placing your subject, and other elements, along the lines and at the points of interest. Most cameras will have the option to overlay this grid on the viewing screen, so turn it on if that helps.

The human eye is naturally drawn to the these points of interest. It won’t generally look in the centre of an image first, unless there is a particularly arresting subject drawing the eye there.

Why use the rule of thirds?

Generally placing your subject off-balance, then using one, two or several other elements within the frame, placed at the points of interest, creates a much more visually appealing photo than having your subject dead centre. It:

• Creates balance
• Adds more complexity to an image than just placing your subject in the centre
• Creates energy
• Gives your photo a sense of depth, rather than just being a flat image

What’s very important also, is that you have one or two other elements within the frame that balance or create energy, tension or harmony with your subject. It’s not enough to just have your subject off-centre. Let’s look at some examples.

Let’s start simply. Rule of thirds can be applied to your horizon line. Don’t put it in the middle, use it to run along the top or bottom third of the image:

This is more unusual to do than you imagine. Of the thousands of photos I have with a horizon line only a handful are not running along the centre of the image.

With every technique you use, there has got to be a reason for doing it. Otherwise you just see technique. I used it in the photo above (at the top of the article) because the clouds and sky were so much more interesting than the foreground, and below, because the light on the water was beautiful.

You can also apply the idea of having lines run along the upper or lower third of your image to things other than the horizon. Here I’ve applied it to some well organized rubbish bags. Notice that the line of bags follows the bottom horizontal line, but that it’s also emphasized by the line of the pavement and double yellow line at the bottom? These elements create energy – giving it perhaps a sense of movement and flow. Then you have the vertical lines and brickwork patterns as a contrast. All of this order of lines and patterns are very pleasing to the eye. The mind is always looking for order within the chaos of the world!

It’s important to say that I am not walking around looking for pictures that fit into the rule of thirds, or any of the other composition rules. But when I find a subject I’m interested in (I believe passion for your subject is the most important thing in your photography) and I am composing, looking for elements etc., then that’s when the rules are really helpful. Once you really get familiar with the rules, then you can start to adapt them to your own creative vision.

I have a passion for urban decay, you might call it. In the image below, instead of placing the ball and the column dead centre, I placed it in the left third of the frame. The other elements that are balancing it out are the ring on the floor, the lines going horizontally along the image, connecting with the points of interest lines, and then in the top third of the photo we have the notice on the wall. Take away the notice and the ring, and you’d have a much plainer, less interesting image.

Below is one of my favourite photos of London. Here you have the old street lamp hitting the two left hand points of interest, and the wheel of the London Eye in the bottom right corner. You could say that there are only two elements in this photo – a primary and a supporting secondary in juxtaposition. The street lamp being the primary element is placed on the first third and is without a doubt the main subject. But by adding the London Eye as the secondary element we now have a sense of place, and the relationship is complete. It says, “This is London!”

I like that the third element in the image below is the blue background, which helps the image feel clean. But because of the balancing elements of the woman and the sign, it’s not overly simple.

In the photo below is a rough adherence to the Rule of Thirds. Can you see where I placed the elements and why? Do you think this was the best way to compose the image? What’s important for me is that it’s not just a photo of a skeleton – it’s a photo of a skeleton in a very beautiful place. I find that lots of photographers will get absolutely mesmerized by their subject and start taking photos before absorbing the whole scene (you know that time when you get your images up on the computer and wonder why they don’t look as great as you thought they were going to, this is often due to not taking in the whole scene).

A very interesting skeleton it is, and unusual to come across. But there is also the element of perspective and the upper third being an almost ethereal sky. If you take away the sky the photo wouldn’t pop, would it? By placing the subject nearer the lower third I’ve created space for it to rest in.

Rule of thirds will help you capture beauty

Most people are able to appreciate, and see, the beauty and harmony of nature on a large scale – that epic view of a sunset over a beach, the vast meadow of beautiful flowers. But when you put a camera up to your eye, and reduce an image to a much smaller scale, I think most people lose that ability to see the harmony of the world, and thereby its beauty. The rule of thirds will help you see how to create harmony and balance within your photo, by helping you when you are placing your elements within your frame.

And now to Venice. This photo below is a bit more complicated, but let’s look at what elements are the most important. The man, definitely. He is bang on one of the points of interest. Now notice how the change of colour and texture of the building runs along one of the lines.

There is some of the structure of the rule of thirds but that’s not the whole story here. So you can use elements of the rule of thirds and then add in your own ideas and elements. It’s all flexible. Play with it.

Let the rules help you be excellent

You can sometimes use the rule of thirds to almost repair your image, by cropping. All processing programs will have the grid available, and I know that some photographers will overlay the grid and crop their image to fit these rules. I am not a fan of any kind of regular cropping. Why? Because I think in general it makes you a lazy photographer. Don’t rely on anything after the fact to make your photo better, when you can capture something in-frame now. By all means use things to enhance an already good photo, but no bad photo can be saved in post-production.

But – if you love post production, and you want that to be what defines your images, that’s fine. But become awesome at that, be excellent. What unifies all photographers who are taking consistently excellent photos is they are committed to excellence in their own way. That I can get behind.

We all come to rules differently. I’ve noticed in my workshops that not everyone has an affinity for absorbing rules, and putting them into practise. Maybe the idea of a more technical basis for your photography makes you squirm. But I would really encourage you to stick with it. Even if it takes a while for you to absorb this, the technical aspects of photography really give you a good grounding, so that you have the ability to take the photographs that you see in your mind’s eye.

If you are more of a technical rules-based person, my advice is to try and propel yourself away from the rules. I’ve noticed that people who get too involved in rules of composition, and their camera buttons, often find it difficult to really see what’s going on around them. So learn the rules, but then really push yourself to see beyond them.

So go explore and take the rules with you. Learn them, play with them and have fun.

The post The Rule of Thirds – How it Can Help or Hinder Your Composition by Anthony Epes appeared first on Digital Photography School.

The Nexus 5 was a big hit; an unqualified success for Google. People loved that phone, and many of them are still using one. Now, there's finally a true successor to the Nexus 5 in the LG-built Nexus 5X. Hopes were understandably high for this phone, and the handful of missing features led some Nexus 5 owners to planning how they'd keep their 2013-era phones running for another year. Specs don't tell you the whole story, though.

Read More

Nexus 5X Review: It's Better Than You Think was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

The anti-piracy business is booming, with thousands of companies making a decent living by helping rightsholders to protect their work.

London-based MUSO is one of these outfits. The company has been around for a long time and has evolved into one of the most active senders of DMCA notices to Google.

Just two years ago MUSO received a £250,000 “Smart Award” grant from the UK Government’s Technology Strategy Board, to improve and expand its piracy tracking technologies.

Despite this cash injection MUSO’s data gathering technique is far from optimal. A few weeks ago, for example, we pointed out that many of the takedown notices it sends are bogus.

In addition to sending takedown requests the company also collects file-sharing statistics, which they offer to copyright holders as business intelligence. Unfortunately, these systems are not without mistakes either.

A few days ago the following tweet from MUSO’s official Twitter account caught our eye, announcing “The Walk” as the most uploaded film that week.

To us this was quite a surprising result, because there are only a few low quality copies of The Walk on torrent sites. With just a few hundred people sharing, those are not popular at all compared to other pirated films.

So what happened here?

Well, after giving it some thought we realized that MUSO’s data gathering tool may have omitted a crucial element. Instead of looking at entire filenames it appears to have checked the total uploads of all files with the words “The Walk” in there, while forgetting to filter out “-ing Dead.”

This means that in addition to the few thousand “The Walk” uploads last week, it may have also counted the millions of uploads of “The Walk/ing Dead.” This makes sense, since The Walking Dead was the most shared TV episode by far that week.

Ouch.

Of course mistakes can happen everywhere, especially with companies that have to rely on filters to sift through massive amounts of data. What’s most troubling though, is the fact that the result was proudly shared with the rest of the world, without a proper check.

It appears that nobody at MUSO noticed the oddity, and neither did any of their followers, as the tweet is still online after more than a week.

Whether anyone will walk the plank as a result of this embarrassing error is doubtful. However, we would argue that the Government’s “Smart Award” might not have been the best investment of UK tax payers’ money.

Update: MUSO has responded to this article and informs us that our assumptions are wrong. The company admits that the tweet is “unintentionally misleading” and will phrase it differently in the future.

The “most uploaded film” refers to a selective sample of movies that premiered in the UK that week. MUSO counts the number of uploads to various torrent, streaming and download sites and found that “The Walk” topped the chart that week.

“In this instance, and in line with our other weekly UK film theatrical release measurement tweets, the post should have made more specific reference to UK theatrical week of release as the data collection and comparison period.”

“Over the past decade, our data collection technologies have been developed, optimised and continuously benchmarked to ensure both metadata and fingerprint capture are performing with near zero error.”

Since there are only a few new theatrical releases in the UK each week, with even fewer being leaked online, The Walk can indeed be the most uploaded new release. The misleading tweet can still be seen as an embarrassing mistake, but not nearly as bad as we assumed.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

This generation of Nexus phones is having some teething troubles, or at least the accessories are. A few weeks after the first batch of Nexus 6P cases appeared to block the laser auto-focus module on the rear of the phone, some early cases for the Nexus 5X are showing similar problems. Redditor Brucensb showed off a photo of a Spigen-branded Ultra Hybrid case that completely covers the microphone on the bottom edge of the phone, the primary mic used when making a call.

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Some Early Cases For The Nexus 5X Cover The Primary Microphone was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

When the weather starts getting cooler, it’s time to think about our outerwear. This easy DIY project will keep your hands warm while keeping your fingers free.

All you need are a pair of socks (preferrably wool) and the ability to sew some seams—no sewing machine required. Heart appliques optional.

I’ve spent many hours knitting fingerless gloves for people, when really I could’ve just made sock gloves.

Check out the simple tutorial below.

Finger-less Gloves made from socks | We Lived Happily Ever After

Confidential research files on human rights abuses in El Salvador were stolen from a human rights organization in Washington state, just weeks after that same organization sued the CIA for refusing to release documents related to those very same abuses.

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The DoJ is currently trying to force Apple to decrypt data stored on a defendant's Iphone, and Apple, to its great credit, is fighting back, arguing that on the one hand, it doesn't have the technical capability to do so; and on the other, should not be required to do so. (more…)

Researchers at Incapsula have discovered a botnet that runs on compromised CCTV cameras. There are hundreds of millions, if not billions, of these in the field, and like many Internet of Things devices, their security is an afterthought and not fit for purpose. (more…)

I was right there with you internet. On Monday night, I suffered through a football game that had no impact on my fantasy match-up to watch the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer, and it did not disappoint. Rumor has it that trailer is the last official tease of footage before the film's release this Christmas, so I was prepared to mute my enthusiasm for a couple more months. I risk using clicheé, but this new trailer is legitimately the best yet — and it was made by a fan.

Posted by Science vs. Cinema on YouTube, the trailer combines all footage from the previous three trailers, along with footage from the behind-the-scenes montage at Comic-Con. The YouTube synopsis describes it as a supercut by the channel's co-creator, James...

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