Motorola yesterday held a live Hangout On Air to talk Moto 360, with design lead, Jim Wicks. Despite some technical difficulties – seems someone didn't know how to set up a proper broadcast! – things eventually got underway and we saw and heard a few interesting tidbits.
    
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http://www.deadline.com/2014/03/nbc-renews-chicago-fire-chicago-pd-grimm/
According to Deadline Hollywood, Buffy exec. producer and Angel co-creator David Greenwalt's latest show Grimm has been picked up by NBC for a fourth season.
Jason's dogs, Nemo and Pretzel, relaxing with the GGNRA in the background.
Since its inception in 1979, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area has been a massive, amazing, wonderful resource for San Francisco Bay Area residents. The GGNRA's charter states that it is to be treated as an urban recreational area for use by humans and their canine companions. It is the only US National park that allows dogs to be walked off-leash, and includes miles of on-leash trails for person and beast to roam. For as long as I can remember, the National Parks Service has been trying to limit or ban dogs from having this access.
I've lived in a small community, inside the parks boundaries, since 2008. There has been constant pressure from the NPS to ban dogs. Almost every year a large group of folks from all over the Bay Area oppose these restrictions and work inside the government-mandated process to prevent these changes. The story is always the same, the NPS does a half-assed job of unscientifically deciding that dogs are bad, presents no real studies or information on the impacts and decrees that dogs must go. This time, they've gone a step further. The Park service has illegally posted signs restricting access. Rangers have also begun harassing dog walkers under the pretense that these restrictions are already law. The NPS is doing this of their own accord, outside the process our Nation is relying on to represent us.
Sadly, I am out of the country and may not be able to reach my representatives. If you are so inclined, please give them a call (their numbers are in the quote below.) Nemo and Pretzel, my best friends, walk on those trails daily. Xeni and Miles have been watching them for me, while I'm out of town on business for the site, and can attest that life would be impossible if we're locked in the house and not allowed to walk in the park.
Honestly, the NPS runs national parks, not urban recreation areas. They don't understand the difference and want to turn a community resource into a tourist attraction. They are potentially wrecking businesses that have been in place for decades, creating massive traffic problems and treating the local residents like second class citizens. I think many of us lucky enough to live close to or inside the park are willing to work with the system, but the NPS just disregards the rules and presents false studies as science.
My neighbor Laura Pandapas shares this via NextDoor:
ALL HANDS ON DECK!!! AGAIN.......I know........CALL-IN CAMPAIGN TO REPS. JARED HUFFMAN & NANCY PELOSI scheduled for THIS THURSDAY MARCH 20th.
GGNRA initiates actions to restrict dogs NOW! Call your elected officials this Thursday March 20th.
BACKGROUND:
The GGNRA dropped a bombshell late last week. While we've all been participating in good faith in the planning process by providing public input about the Dog Management Plan, the GGNRA has been getting ready to circumvent its own process and started implementing rules against dogs NOW.
• The GGNRA and the Presidio Trust plan to implement an "interim" rule to go in to effect in May that will restrict professional dog walking on GGNRA lands. No matter that professional dog walking rules are included in the GGNRA's dog management proposal that is undergoing an official federal review process; apparently the GGNRA has decided that it can just select a part of it's proposed plan and push it through outside of the process.
• Meanwhile, this past weekend in Marin, the GGNRA installed new signs restricting dog access, and rangers have been hassling the public to try and enforce new dog rules that don't exist yet.
The GGNRA hasn't even had time to read the thousands of public comments we submitted in opposition to their plan just one month ago! And they are over a year and a half away from the scheduled release of the final Environmental Impact Statement and ruling.
TAKE ACTION:
CALL YOUR U.S. REPRESENTATIVE
THURSDAY MARCH 20TH...and respectfully request Congressional oversight. That is the ONLY was to stop this disaster.
Jared Huffman sits on the Subcommittee for Public Lands and Environmental Regulation. He has the power to ask the Chairman to call for hearings on this issue. Tell him that's what you want! Call both offices for each Representative.
Jared Huffman (415)258-9657 AND in DC at (202) 225-5161
Nancy Pelosi (415) 556-4862 AND in DC at (202) 225-4965
WHAT TO SAY:
• Over the last week, the GGNRA has taken some extremely troubling and bad-faith steps. They've erected NEW incorrect signage restricting dogs, and rangers are telling people to leash their dogs in areas that don't require leashes, when we are over a year and a half away from completion of a federally mandated public process! And with the "interim permit requirements" for professional dog walking, they are attempting to change the rules outside of the process altogether.
• Congress MUST get involved because the GGNRA is clearly not playing by the rules and don't intend to. The GGNRA's disregard for the public process cannot be allowed to continue. Congress should care when a Federal agency shows such utter contempt for the public and the the public process.
• I am respectfully asking Rep. Huffman/Leader Pelosi to push for Congressional oversight of this process. Thank you!***********
Endorsed by Crissy Field DOG, Ft. Funston Dog Walkers, Keep Muir Beach Dog Friendly, Marin County DOG, Save Off Leash Dog Walking, SF Professional Dog Walkers, and SFDOG.
Please call Representatives Huffman and Pelosi and let them know how you feel.
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New apps need lovin’ too, right? Every day there are thousands of additions to the Google Play Store, but many go unnoticed and never receive the attention they deserve. We’ve shown in the past that this community can discover great apps and propel them to new heights. Our weekly Fresh Meat column highlights new apps with fewer than 100,000 installs. Browse our new Android app picks below and let us know which ones you enjoy.
Description: The brand new podcast player at Google play! with outstanding features like cross device synchronization, inbox and library concept and a modern, holo-based, coverart centric design.
Description: CastPad lets you draw on your phone and see it show up instantly on your TV and all other devices connected to the Chromecast!
Description: MyCastScreen is the first custom home screen replacement application for Google Chromecast. It doesn’t actually replace your home screen – as that’s not actually possible (yet) – but you can cast this screen, close the app, and go on with your day.
Description: Add dialogues to photos to keep your memories alive! Voice Balloon Photos uses voice recognition so you can save photos with speech balloons. This application also lets you edit text and change the theme of the speech balloons so you can recreate the atmosphere at the time of shooting and relive good times captured in your photos.
Description: Get your family and home ready for a flood. The American Red Cross Flood app is the complete solution you need to understand and prepare for flooding and all that comes with it. With interactive quizzes and simple step-by-step advice it’s never been easier to be ready!
Description: Use this app as a support terminal to display maps, call support helicopters while playing the console version of METAL GEAR SOLID V: GROUND ZEROES. While away from the main game, brush up on intel by reviewing classified recordings or listen to music tracks featuired within the game.
Description: Google Play is at this moment a mess and it’s hard to find Chromecast-Apps. You’ll find with this app an overview about all Google Cast compatible Apps in the Google Play Store.
Description: Motorola Help (replaces Moto Care on some devices) is all that you need to learn about your Motorola phone. View FAQs, tutorials and tips about your phone – plus, get direct access to real people at Motorola Customer Care when you need more assistance.
Description: Download the free Al Jazeera America News app now and get more depth and more perspectives on the most important U.S. and global news stories of the day. Swipe through top news picks and listen to the latest stories read aloud via our unique hands-free “commuter mode.”
Description: Would you like to know what app is using network in your phone? Would you like to know what address is the application connecting? Network monitor could help you.
We recently heard from some folks who'd been digging through the BBC iPlayer app that Chromecast support had been built in ahead of a launch in the UK. Turns out that was indeed correct, and as of today the app is 100% ready to cast. After opening it up you may find you need to wait a minute, or even relaunch the app – as I had to – in order to kickstart things.
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UK carrier EE is experiencing some widespread downtime this evening, with many customers reporting they've been unable to connect to the network since around 7pm UK time. Curiously, the issue seems to be SIM-specific, with some accounts with multiple SIMs seeing an outage on one, but not the other. EE says it's aware of the issue and is working on a fix.
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With Uncle Ben no longer around to lend his sage advice, Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) is clearly struggling with the whole with-great-power-comes-great-responsibility thing. As the latest – and final – trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 shows, a little arrogance is creeping into his game and hubris could yet be his undoing. Click below for a closer look.
So what can we glean from this? That Peter’s dad Richard and Chris Cooper’s ailing Norman Osborn will be significant deus ex machina in the story: one, still doing good from beyond the grave; the other leading his son astray from his possible deathbed. (Well, he doesn’t sound too sprightly here.)
Richard’s secret subway carriage could steer Spidey towards the evil at work within Oscorp... and there’s plenty of it. It’s a much closer look at the heavily armoured, and armed, Rhino, played in human form by Paul Giamatti, and Jamie Foxx’s Electro in action. Dane DeHaan’s reinvention as the Green Goblin also gets a proper airing, although we can’t help preferring him when he’s channelling young-Leo-with-the-flu as the pasty, lab-lit Osborn Junior. {Two New Electro Stills From The Amazing Spider-Man 2} Somewhere amid this gathering storm of baddies, Peter is trying to make his relationship with Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone) work and get his homework done on time. Good luck with that, dude.{Latest Amazing Spider-Man 2 Poster} So can Marc Webb’s second Spidey outing tread that fine line between setting up the villains of future movies without overloading the story in the way that ultimately doomed Spider-Man 3? Find out on April 18 if you’re in the UK, and May 2 in the US. For a more micro-detailed look at what we know so far head over to this teaser trailer breakdown.
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Sony has revealed its plans for virtual reality technology on the PlayStation 4. Shuhei Yoshida, president of Sony Worldwide Studios, showed off a prototype headset at a Game Developers Conference 2014 event entitled Driving the Future of Innovation. "Nothing delivers a feeling of immersion better than VR," said Yoshida. "VR has been a dream of many gamers since the computer was invented. Many of us at PlayStation have dreamed of VR and what it could mean to the gaming community."
What's being described as the "final" Game of Thrones season four trailer has launched exclusively on Facebook. The trailer sets the tone for the new season, bringing back the familiar themes of moral ambiguity, violence, politics, revenge, and a sprinkling of fantasy. Oh, and Daenerys' dragons seem to have grown a lot. The new season debuts this April on HBO.
The UK is planning to introduce a new 12-sided £1 coin that it says will be the hardest in the world to fake. Pending approval, the dodecagon coin will replace the current circular design, and will feature a number of security measures to prevent counterfeiting. The Royal Mint, a government-owned company responsible for minting all the UK's coins, says the new bi-metallic coin will be the first to integrate iSIS, a technology introduced last year with three layers of security.
We’re in a weird time for the way the future looks; somehow House of Cards can slyly introduce a floating text-message interface to their present-day political drama without so much as blinking, but most of our iconic near- and far-future worlds run on tracks laid down well before the ’90s. And it’s not just the recycling of every franchise from Star Trek to RoboCop: Avatar’s and Prometheus’ huge budgets couldn’t hide their indebtedness to the grandiose sci-fi storyboards of the...
Earlier today news broke that Viacom and Google/YouTube have settled their billion dollar copyright infringement dispute, in which the former had accused the latter of hosting its video content without permission.
The precise terms of the settlement have not been disclosed, but the fact that YouTube has been trying hard to combat piracy in recent years can hardly have gone unnoticed. It invests large sums into Content ID, but this anti-piracy / monetization system can’t ever hope to solve the problem completely.
So, while the world is worrying about The Pirate Bay and other so-called ‘rogue sites’, through no fault of its own YouTube continues to be a pretty decent place to watch unauthorized content, not least hundreds if not thousands of Hollywood movies.
Finding that content is fairly easy too, via a title search (sometimes followed by “full movie”) and the activation of the “Duration Long” feature which only returns videos in excess of 20 minutes. However, spammers have been doing their best to pollute these results for some time, with fake video uploads of around two hours which claim to be the movie but are actually ploys to generate traffic to other sites.
If only there was a pre-moderated YouTube-movie-indexing site with a great Popcorn Time-style interface complete with reviewer ratings. Maybe looking something like this?
Actually there are already quite a few of these kinds of sites but MovieFork attracted our attention after it appeared in a complaint to Google penned by Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Universal, Warner and Disney – together the MPAA.
The complaint features three sites – MovieFork, FullMovies.cc and Otakhang.com, each dedicated to indexing Hollywood movies already available on YouTube. While many of the titles indexed by these sites are older classics, there’s no shortage of newer titles from the past year. Quality is half decent too, hardly the peer-through-a-letterbox experience of years gone by.
In its complaint the MPAA asks Google to take down specific URLs, including the MovieFork homepage. In another it asks for the FullMovies.cc domain to be delisted along with that of fellow YouTube movie indexing site Uflix.net.
But despite the nature of the sites, Google refused to comply with the MPAA’s requests. Google’s own Transparency Report shows it took “no action” in respect of the takedown notices and searching for the precise URLs with Google search reveals they are still indexed, with none of the sites’ homepages being delisted either.
Quite why Google is refusing to respond is unclear, but there are some interesting pointers. For example, similar requests to take down URLs that point to movies hosted on sites other than YouTube have been successful, such as the one for Man of Steel listed in this complaint.
It’s certainly possible that Google expects rightsholders to send their takedowns directly to YouTube, rather than shooting endless links and leaving the original content intact. Indeed, there are plenty of signs they are doing just that as some links are no longer available.
The scale of the free-full-movies problem is evident when one looks at Zero Dollar Movies, a site that claims to index 15,000 movies, all available for free from YouTube. It appears to use the YouTube Search API and even has its own ‘Instant’ feature for suggesting content that searchers may be interested in.
Other indexes, such as /FullMoviesonYoutube, a section of Reddit dedicated to just that, are pretty basic but show that not much infrastructure is needed in order to create a decent selection.
The movies-on-YouTube problem isn’t new in the same way that the torrents issue isn’t, but like Popcorn Time showed, it’s certainly got an awful lot prettier.
Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.
Seed companies and farmers didn't follow scientists' recommendations about growing a type of corn that had been genetically engineered to produce its own pesticide, and now the beetle they were battling has developed an immunity to the corn and is gorging on it with abandon. This type of corn (Bt corn) accounts for three-quarters of all corn grown in the US.
By the turn of the millennium, however, scientists who study the evolution of insecticide resistance were warning of imminent problems. Any rootworm that could survive Bt exposures would have a wide-open field in which to reproduce; unless the crop was carefully managed, resistance would quickly emerge.
Key to effective management, said the scientists, were refuges set aside and planted with non-Bt corn. Within these fields, rootworms would remain susceptible to the Bt toxin. By mating with any Bt-resistant worms that chanced to evolve in neighboring fields, they’d prevent resistance from building up in the gene pool.
But the scientists’ own recommendations — an advisory panel convened in 2002 by the EPA suggested that a full 50 percent of each corn farmer’s fields be devoted to these non-Bt refuges — were resisted by seed companies and eventually the EPA itself, which set voluntary refuge guidelines at between 5 and 20 percent. Many farmers didn’t even follow those recommendations.
Voracious Worm Evolves to Eat Biotech Corn Engineered to Kill It
(Image: Silk clipping, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from entogirl's photostream) 
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If you purchased any music from iTunes between 2003 and 2009, you downloaded tracks with DRM in them. Apple's long since removed the DRM, but you might not have. Wired shows how to update your music library with the new, DRM-free versions.
The process here is pretty simple, but if you're anything like me, you never bothered to actually do it:
Once you run through the process of deleting those songs you can download them from the cloud at any point, DRM free. This has been around for a while, but if you haven't grabbed those DRM free versions, nows as good a time as any.
Kill the DRM in Your Old iTunes Music Purchases | Wired
![1[5]](http://cdn.androidpolice.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/nexusae0_151.png "1[5]")
The day is drawing near for our friends across the pond – Chromecast is all set to go on sale tomorrow, March 19th. In fact, it has already started showing up on the web at sites likes like PC World and Currys for £30.
This is right in line with a leak we saw from Dixons earlier this month that stated the prospected launch date, which has now been essentially confirmed by these listings.
Chromecast Is Already Live In The UK At PC World And Currys – It's Yours For £30 was written by the awesome team at Android Police.
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Building on the announcement by Google of its new wearable device platform, Android Wear, Motorola has announced its first device with the software: Moto 360. Just as we expected based on statements back at MWC, the focus here is primarily on the design, materials and experience of the watch as a piece of jewelry more than just as a technologically "smart" device.
Motorola is using high-quality metals, leather and precision manufacturing to make Moto 360 in a way that it "begs to be worn," according to the promotional videos. And based on what we can see so far, it looks downright beautiful to us already. Motorola takes a small dig at other smartwatches that are all square or rectangular, explaining that when it went to design Moto 360, it had to go round.
Of course at the core of things it is running Android Wear, with all of the same functions we're seeing shown off from Google and others — "Ok Google" voice control, Google Now card-style information and messaging functions are all here.
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Hot on the heels of today's Android Wear announcement, LG has revealed the first smartwatch powered by Google's wearable platform. The device, teased briefly in today's announcement post, sports an angular design with a reflective black chassis. LG says the watch, launching next quarter, will be compatible with a "wide range" of Android smartphones, and will feature the main capabilities highlighted in Google's demo reel.
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A new Star Wars film is getting closer by the day, and Lucasfilm and Disney have just announced some new information on the status of the production. Episode VII — co-written and directed by J.J. Abrams — is set to begin shooting this May at Pinewood Studios in London. For the first time, however, the team is giving an indication of what fans can expect to see when the film hits theaters in 2015. According to today's release, it will take place 30 years after Return of the Jedi, which capped off the original Star Wars trilogy, and "will star a trio of new young leads along with some very familiar faces."
The latter reference is no doubt a nod to what has been rumored for months: that Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, and Mark Hamill...
Twitter’s Discover tab is a dream that never quite came true. Designed to help tweets break free from the tyranny of chronology, the Discover tab promises to bring you news of the day from the people you follow, the people those people follow, and other major events from the day. But Discover suffers from the same chaos that the main timeline has — it’s one more stream with no discernible order or organization. If you were away from Twitter for a day, browsing it could give you an impressionistic view of what you missed. But it seems like there should be a better way.
Google is officially getting into wearables. The company has announced Android Wear, a version of the operating system designed specifically for wearable devices. To start with, the system is made for smartwatches, and Google is moving aggressively to make itself the key name in wearables.
The company has released two videos that show off what the watch interface will look like, and from what we've seen, it's very impressive. In addition, Motorola and LG have already revealed their first Android Wear smartwatches, which look more attractive than any smartwatches we've seen to date. Motorola's first device is featured in the picture above and the videos below.
There are several key features that have been announced. Of course, fitness...
Last week, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, gave a searing speech on Capitol Hill accusing CIA officials of hacking into computers to find an internal report that details the agency's torture tactics during the Bush years. Sources now tell Al Jazeera that the report outlines in great detail how the CIA engaged in interrogation tactics that went above and beyond what was legally authorized by President Bush after 9/11. The revelation lends credence to the allegations that the CIA went out of its way to rifle through Senate documents in an effort to cover the findings up.
A new video has surfaced of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford swearing, stumbling and cursing in front of City Hall after having his picture taken with a young boy whose mother identified as a fan of the mayor. The mayor, who had promised that he would stop drinking, smoking crack, taking marijuana, hanging out with murderers and notorious gangsters, and suppressing evidence in criminal investigations, would not comment on the video. His brother, councillor Doug Ford, told reporters that his brother kept his promises, but when confronted with the video, he clarified that the mayor only keeps political promises, and not promises about his obvious, glaring, horrific substance abuse problems.
Rob Ford heard swearing, slurring speech in new video 
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A very tricky phishing scam that takes advantage of Google Docs is making its way around the web. And since it uses a google.com URL and even makes use of Google's SSL encryption, it's almost impossible to tell that it's a hack. Your best safeguard, as always, is a little bit of common sense.
This phishing scam starts like many other phishing scams: with an email. The malicious message reportedly arrives with the subject line "Documents" and points to a Google Docs link. Again, it shows up in the address bar as a google.com domain and takes you to a fake log-in page that looks just like the real Google login page. This is how the hackers get you.
"The fake page is actually hosted on Google's servers and is served over SSL, making the page even more convincing," Symantec security expert Nick Johnston explained in a blog post. "The scammers have simply created a folder inside a Google Drive account, marked it as public, uploaded a file there, and then used Google Drive's preview feature to get a publicly accessible URL to include in their messages."
Once you log in through the fake page, you'll even be taken to an actual Google Doc. Your credentials will be sent to PHP script on a compromised server. You may never even know they've been swiped. Unless, of course, you don't fall for the scam in the first place.
To do this just watch out for two things. One, be careful clicking links in emails. If you receive an email from someone you don't know with a subject line like "Documents," it's probably up to no good. Second, if you show up at the log-in screen, you should notice that it doesn't recognize you as a Google user (if you are a Google user). That's the fake log in page pictured above to the left and a real Google log in page to the right. So if it seems strange that you have to log in again, beware.
Actually, just beware in general. These phishing scams are getting scary sophisticated . We've reached out to Google to see what they're doing to safeguard users from this one. [Symantec via The Hacker News]
Update: Google got back to us and said the problem is fixed. A statement from their press team reads:
We've removed the fake pages and our abuse team is working to prevent this kind of spoofing from happening again. If you think you may have accidentally given out your account information, please reset your password.
The creators of the annual press freedom index have added the US and Britain to their list of countries that repress online speech, arrest bloggers and use the internet to conduct domestic surveillance. Longtime faves such as Iran, North Korea and Cuba have some rich new friends. From the EFF's digest:
United States: This is the first time the US has made it onto RSF’s list. While the US government doesn’t censor online content, and pours money into promoting Internet freedom worldwide, the National Security Agency’s unapologetic dragnet surveillance and the government’s treatment of whistleblowers have earned it a spot on the index.United Kingdom: The European nation has been dubbed by RSF as the “world champion of surveillance” for its recently-revealed depraved strategies for spying on individuals worldwide. The UK also joins countries like Ethiopia and Morocco in using terrorism laws to go after journalists. Not noted by RSF, but also important, is the fact that the UK is also cracking down on legal pornography, forcing Internet users to opt-in with their ISP if they wish to view it and creating a slippery slope toward overblocking. This is in addition to the government’s use of an opaque, shadowy NGO to identify child sexual abuse images, sometimes resulting instead in censorship of legitimate speech.
Other newcomers to the list are Russia, Pakistan, India and Ethiopia. Tunisia and Burma were removed from the list after having "taken steps to ameliorate violations of Internet freedom"
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UK retailer Carphone Warehouse has announced that it'll be selling the new HTC One —aka M8 — in select stores from "around 4pm" on the day of announcement, March 25. That means the phone will be available for Brits to buy "just minutes" after the announcement event in London wraps up — a potentially significant development for HTC, which will get its new handset into consumers' hands ahead of the arrival of Samsung's Galaxy S5.
"Shortly after [the announcement], the new HTC One (M8) handsets will be transported directly from the venue of the launch announcement to six Carphone Warehouse stores in London. Westfield Stratford, Westfield White City, Oxford Circus, Centrepoint and Tottenham Court Road stores will all be hosting special events celebrating the HTC launch with entertainment and giveaways as well as the first chance for customers to get their hands on the new device. Carphone Warehouse at Selfridges will also be stocking the handset from the same time."
There's no word on whether the M8 will also be available on March 25 in the U.S., but either way we'll be live from both the London and NYC launch events to bring you full coverage next Tuesday!
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