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Today, Amazon announced a new feature called Matchbook that will allow owners of hard copies of books to purchase extremely cheap ebook versions for their Kindle collection.

The prices range from $0.99 to $2.99, depending on the title. If you purchased a book from Amazon in the entire time the company has been around (going all the way back to 1995), you qualify for the ebook sale price. The feature will go live in October, with over 10,000 books eligible at the start of the program.

Amazon launches Kindle Matchbook: discounted e-books for those who own the hard copy | Engadget

oclHashcat-plus is a "password-recovery" tool that chews through 8-million guesses a second. It optimizes its guesses by trying phrases from "the Bible, common literature, and in online discussions,” and by formulating characters into websites' required "password-construction protocols."

One security researcher cracked the passphrase “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn1,” a phrase from an H.P. Lovecraft horror story. It was less impossible than it was super easy, crackable in minutes, because it was in an easily available hacker word list.

No password is safe from new breed of cracking software

Today, depending on your perspective, we either mourn the loss of one of the most important phone makers ever, or celebrate that the people behind so many iconic phones will continue to work under the Microsoft flag.

As Microsoft, Nokia, and any number of regulatory authorities get to work on finalizing the $7.3 billion deal that will see Microsoft buy Nokia's Devices and Services devision, take a moment to look back at some of Nokia's most beautiful, important, and bizarre creations.

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BlackBerry Messenger is arriving iOS and Android later this summer, but we’re getting an early look at how the latter app will handle when it goes public. BlackBerryOS.com has posted a video (below) of the newly cross-platform messaging app in use, showing off its BlackBerry 10-like interface on an HTC First. One nice surprise is the ability to transfer contact data over NFC using Android Beam. With a landing page for the new Android and iOS clients now up on BlackBerry’s site, user guides available online, and the end of summer right around the corner, we’re counting down the days until the official launch.

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The wait is almost over. Apple on Tuesday sent invitations to the media for a press conference in San Francisco on September 10th. The focus of the event, of course, will be its next-generation iPhones. Apple's iPhone 5S is expected to take center stage next Thursday and rumors suggest it will feature a faster processor, an upgraded camera with a dual-LED flash and a major internal overhaul that will likely make room for a fingerprint scanner. The new flagship iPhone will also likely be accompanied by the mid-range iPhone 5C, which is expected to feature more modest specs, a price tag somewhere near $400 and a plastic case that comes at least five different colors. We'll also finally get release timing for iOS 7 and perhaps a few surprise announcements as well.

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.

This edition focuses only on new games. The app roundup is coming up soon.

• [New Game] Activision Brings Skylanders Cloud Patrol To Android, Complete With NFC Figure Integration
• [New Game] Bravoman: Binja Bash Arrives In Google Play With Stretchy Arms Flailing Wildly
• [New Game] Calling All Passengers For 'The Last Express,' The Latest Classic Game Port For Android
• Little Big Adventure Is Heading To Android This Fall, Brings The 90s Into The 21st Century

23 Best (And 1 WTF) New Android Games From The Last 2 Weeks (8/20/13 - 9/2/2013) was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

New owner, same problems

In case you haven't heard, Microsoft surprised very few people tonight when it announced that it would purchase all relevant mobile-related parts of and license patents from Nokia for about $7.17 billion (€5.44 billion). Much has already been said (and will continue to be said) about the specifics of the deal, but it's interesting to think about how this purchase will effect Google and the numerous manufacturers of Android handsets.

In terms of market share, Nokia absolutely dominates the Windows Phone. You can see it in commercials and advertising, from carriers to Microsoft itself, Nokia is the premier brand for Windows Phone. Though the scales are dramatically different, this is analogous to Google purchasing Samsung's mobile handset division (and probably Sony and LG on top of that). With one small purchase — Nokia will cost Microsoft less than it paid to acquire Skype — Microsoft has just taken for all intents and purposes the entire Windows Phone marketplace into its own hands again.

Although they are overwhelmingly focused on building Android devices, major manufacturers like Samsung and HTC have been dabbling in making Windows Phone handsets for the past couple of years. It made sense for these OEMs to diversify at least slightly to ensure that they didn't have every single egg in one basket when it came to operating systems.

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The week is just getting started, but HTC is dropping new devices like it's going out of style. No, it's not that rumored One Max we've been hearing about. The company is breathing new life into the Desire brand with the mid-range Desire 601 and the entry-level Desire 300. HTC is also announcing a Bluetooth subwoofer accessory for BoomSound devices and a new "Vivid Blue" HTC One.

Desire 601

 

 

The Desire 601 is not a flagship device, but it does have some nice features.

• HTC Makes The One Mini Official: 4.3-Inch Screen, Snapdragon 400 CPU, And Aluminum Unibody, Launching In August
• HTC Announces Mid-Range Desire 500 For The UK: 4.3", 1.2Ghz Quad-Core, Removable Battery, And MicroSD
• AT&T Announces HTC One Mini – Available August 23rd For $99.99 On-Contract
• HTC Announces The Butterfly S With A 5-Inch 1080p Screen, 3200mAh Battery, Sense 5, BoomSound Speakers, And More

HTC Announces Mid-Range Desire 601, Entry-Level Desire 300, BoomBass Bluetooth Subwoofer, And Vivid Blue HTC One/One Mini was written by the awesome team at Android Police.

Earbuds have a habit of getting tangled and annoying when you toss them in a bag. Luckily, you can keep them organized with a standard chewing gum container.

Instructables user Kris T. shows you how it's done. The project is pretty straightforward, but I love that it keeps the the headphones organized while still letting you use them. He used a bead to keep the aux jack from sliding into the box, and a paperclip to control how much length he can pull out of the other side. The only downside is that you have to manually repack the spare wire once you're done, but that still beats dealing with tangles. Be sure to check out the source link for complete instructions.

Portable Container for Earbuds | Instructables

Of the thousands of separate requests web and telecommunications companies get each year for customer data, many probably never directly crack a case. But sometimes, they do. Ars Technica discusses the case of the High Country Bandits, two rural bank robbers who were caught by an electronic dragnet known as a "cell tower dump." The FBI asked carriers to turn over the records of every phone that had come near cell towers close to the locations of the robberies at a certain time.

Officers successfully got two suspects from the data, finding one number that had been at all four sites at the right time and a second that had been at two — and was in contact with the first number. But in the process, it looked over the records of more than...

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During the past couple of years it has become evident that attempts at bringing tough but workable anti-piracy measures into law – particularly ones that target consumers directly – have not been as straightforward as rightsholders would have liked.

After immense effort and with a background of controversy, in 2010 the then Labour government rushed through the Digital Economy Act (DEA) in the UK. That legislation contained provisions which would allow rightsholders to monitor alleged file-sharers and send them warning letters via their Internet service providers. But three years on and the implementation of the law is still well over a year (maybe two) away.

In the meantime the music business has concentrated on legal action to have file-sharing sites such as The Pirate Bay and KickassTorrents blocked at the ISP level. But despite their claims that this is an effective anti-piracy technique (and in the face of reports to the contrary), the labels have grown weary of waiting for the additional powers allocated to them by the DEA.

According to a Guardian report, the labels are currently in talks with Virgin Media, BSkyB and TalkTalk in an effort to have the ISPs implement a voluntary graduated response scheme for dealing with errant subscribers.

And the music biz, headed by the BPI, aren’t on their own. The negotiations have also included the British Video Association, an organization which represents a wide range of Hollywood studios and local broadcasters including the BBC and Channel 4.

So what do the labels and Hollywood want?

At the core is a three-strikes or graduated response-style scheme, which will see rightsholders monitor networks such as BitTorrent for infringements and send warning notifications to Internet subscribers via their ISPs. It appears a US-style ‘Copyright Alert’ model would be desirable but it’s almost certain that there will be calls for a tougher regime with harsher punishments such as throttling and disconnections. But industry dreams aside, there are issues with introducing a system like this on a voluntary basis in the UK.

In order to create an escalating response to serial offenders, someone will need to keep track of which subscribers have had letters in the past. It’s pretty much a certainty that on privacy grounds the ISPs would not freely share this information with rightsholders, but even holding onto this data themselves as part of a voluntary scheme could get them into trouble under the Data Protection Act.

And as far as negotiations go, already there appears to be problems. TalkTalk, a company that previously ran a campaign in direct opposition to any kind of anti-piracy punishment that includes subscriber disconnection, told the Guardian that while talks are indeed underway, the company would “never agree to anything” that would compromise their customers.

Virgin Media went further still, describing the industry’s demands as “unworkable.”

As Prime Minister David Cameron invites key UK music figures to Number 10 to have a chat about government support for their industry, the BPI have confirmed that anti-piracy proposals are on the agenda.

“We expect a range of issues to be covered, including encouraging the growth of legal digital music services in the UK and overseas exports,” a BPI spokesperson said.

“As concerns the Digital Economy Act, we will discuss with Government the need for swifter action to reduce online copyright theft, improve consumer awareness of legal services and make the UK the leading digital economy in Europe.”

Source: Copyright Holders Want Voluntary UK Three-Strikes Anti-Piracy Scheme

UK company Vodafone has owned a big chunk (45 percent) of Verizon Wireless since 1999, but that is about to change

Verizon has confirmed the rumor that they will be buying all of Vodafone's stake in the wireless division of their company in a $130 billion cash and stock deal that should close by Q1 2014. The deal was unanimously approved by the board of both companies, but still has to be approved by the government and company shareholders.

The executives at both companies are pretty bullish on the deal, and Verizon's Lowell McAdam says:

This transaction will enhance value across platforms and allow Verizon to operate more efficiently, so we can continue to focus on producing more seamless and integrated products and solutions for our customers. We believe full ownership will provide increased opportunities in the enterprise and consumer wireline markets.

In addition to today's news of the Vodafone buyout, Verizon has also announced an increase in the quarterly dividend of 1.5-cents to 53-cents per share. 

With $130 billion about to flow into Vodafone, and Verizon still recording a profit after announcing such an expenditure, it's obvious that the mobile industry is not about to slow down any time soon. See the full press release after the break.

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http://www.bleedingcool.com/2013/09/02/new-agents-of-shield-segment-from-a-daytime-cookery-show-fair-enough/

It starts Friday September 27th.

Despite being among the world's top laptop makers, Acer has yet to make a name for itself internationally as a smartphone manufacturer. While its latest smartphone is unlikely to change that, one feature will certainly pull people's attention away from Samsung, Apple and the rest: a 4K camera. Acer's 6-inch Liquid S2 is the first smartphone to be announced with the capability to record 4K videos. It's a feature that's been rumored for the upcoming Samsung Galaxy Note III smartphone for some time, but Acer has beaten its Korean rival to the punch — the Note III will be announced at a September 4th event in Berlin. Although 4K UHDTVs are definitely still in their infancy, there are several tablets around, such as Apple's iPad, that are...

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Wine is complicated, there's no getting around it. While I prefer to just relax and enjoy it, if you want a better appreciation and understanding of what you're drinking, this infographic is a great tool.

The image doesn't overwhelm you with detail, but it gives you a sense of what colors to look for, what glasses to use, and what various terms mean. I particularly enjoyed the spoked presentation of various aromas you might smell. Click on through to see the full graphic!

A Beginner's Guide to Wine | Visual.ly via Foodbeast

Samsung is getting ready to pull the curtain on its curious Galaxy Gear smartwatch (well, among other things) in just a few days, but what’s a major product unveiling these days without a slew of last-minute leaks to ruin the surprise? To that end, VentureBeat recently got what may be the first real glimpse of Samsung’s Galaxy Gear and it’s, well, pretty bizarre.

Unlike most of the other smartwatches that have exploded onto the scene these past few years — think the Pebble, the MetaWatch, or even Sony’s family of wrist-worn gadgets, the Galaxy Gear is shaping up to be a real whopper. VB reports the square display plus the bezel that runs around it means the watch itself measures about 3 inches diagonal, and images culled from an internal promotional video depict a device that looks like a Galaxy S4 that got nailed with a shrink ray. So much for subtlety. I’m no watch nerd (I leave that sort of thing to John) but I can’t imagine bigger always equals better when it comes to stuff you wear on your person.

It looks like a Galaxy S4 that got nailed with a shrink ray

In typical Samsung fashion though, the company has apparently packed the thing to the gills with a 4-megapixel camera nestled inside in the Gear’s strap, a WiFi radio, speakers, and a microphone so users can deliver S Voice commands to a connected Samsung smartphone.

Perhaps the biggest bummer is that the Galaxy Gear may only be able to run for 10 hours before having to be recharged. That’s just about respectable for modern smartphones (though we should all be demanding more longevity from Samsung and its ilk), but who wants to worry about charging their watch that often? And manufacturer provided battery stats tend to be optimistic too, so that anemic battery could spell trouble for early adopters.

Throw in a handful of “pre-loaded Android apps” and an apparently substantial focus on mobile fitness and health tracking, and you’ve got an ambitious device that seems to have an identity crisis. Is it for your average smartphone nerd? Fitness buffs? Both? VentureBeat’s report provides the clearest look at the Galaxy Gear to date, but I’m looking forward to Samsung trying to explain its rationale for why people would actually need something like this.

If you’ll allow me to wax personal, the reason I’ve stuck with a device like the Pebble instead of dumping it in favor of a more robust gadget is because it’s focused on doing a small number of things well. Notifications? Taken care of. Changing tracks over Bluetooth while I’m driving? Works like a charm. With the Galaxy Gear, Samsung has added plenty of complexity to the smartwatch formula, which also means there are more bits that just may not live up to people’s expectations.

Then again, it’s not like the Korean electronics giant doesn’t have the resources to go out on a limb like this every once in a while. Strange first steps like this one often beget staggering successes down the road — for all we know, Samsung may flex its design and production muscles to becomethe de facto smartwatch maker within a few years. For now though, I’m still not convinced that we’re looking at the full Galaxy Gear picture here, so stay tuned for our coverage of Samsung’s IFA bonanza later this week.

If you send more text and photo messages with your smartphone than you actually place calls, you may already have a favorite free texting app or service that you prefer. After all, SMS and MMS cost money to send (and sometimes, to receive), and if you can do it for free using mobile data or Wi-Fi, why wouldn't you? This week we're going to look at five of the best alternative texting apps and services, based on your nominations.

Earlier in the week we asked you which alternative texting apps you preferred when you want to communicate with friends without spending a ton of money. You responded with tons of great nominations, but we only have room for the top five. Here's what you said, in no particular order:

WhatsApp

WhatsApp is a cross-platform messaging system that supports Android, iOS, Windows Phone, and Blackberry devices, among others. The service is backed by hundreds of millions of active users, and allows you to send text, photo, and voice/video messages to individuals and groups for free using mobile data or Wi-Fi. As soon as you install it, the app compares all of the phone numbers on your phone against known users and adds your friends to your contact list. Messages to any other WhatsApp user are completely free (as long as you have a current WhatsApp subscription).

Like most services of this nature, WhatsApp cannot send or receive messages from non-WhatsApp users, and if you need to communicate with a friend who doesn't use WhatsApp, you're back to traditional SMS or MMS. WhatsApp is free to download and use for the first year, and you'll need a $0.99/yr subscription after that to continue using it.

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Viber

Viber may be a solid SMS replacement service, but it actually does more than just text and picture messages. It's cross-platform, and supports Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Blackberry, and more, and even features desktop clients for WIndows and OS X so you can send, receive, and keep track of your messages on your computer as well as on your mobile device. Viber also has millions of users, and in addition to text and photo messages, it allows you to exchange video and audio messages, and even place VoIP calls to other Viber users (Viber cannot communicate with non-Viber users). All of those communications are free—as long as the person you're talking to is also a Viber user.

When you install it, the app scans your address book for phone numbers (since all Viber users are registered by number) and syncs any other Viber users with your friends list. Viber uses Wi-Fi and mobile data, of course, and bypasses any SMS limits or costs imposed by your carrier. Viber is completely free and ad-free.

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ChompSMS/Textra

ChompSMS and Textra are both Android only, from the same developers, but they're very different apps. ChompSMS is a simple, minimal, and functional SMS replacement service. Instead of sending messages through your carrier's network as SMS, Chomp uses its own network to send text messages to anyone you want—regardless of whether they use ChompSMS—for their own rates. The service is ideal for people who have pre-paid plans or who have carriers that make you pay a ton for text messages, and you can check their rates here to see if it would be cost effective for you to sign up. The upside is that you can send messages to anyone, no matter what service they use, but the downside is that it still costs money.

It's also important to mention that Chomp is really old and out of date—the developers may have abandoned it in favor of their new project, Textra. Textra is a bit more modern, supports MMS and group messages, and has more modern features, but it's really just a replacement for your existing SMS interface, as it sends messages through your carrier's traditional SMS and MMS channels.

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Facebook Messenger

Facebook is closing on a billion active users, and Facebook messenger allows you to connect with any other Facebook user for free, bypassing traditional SMS and MMS channels completely. The Facebook Messenger app supports Android, iOS, and Blackberry, and essentially gives you a mobile version of Facebook messages on the go. You can use it to communicate with your friends on Facebook who are also using the app, or you can use it to send and receive messages with friends who aren't using Facebook at all. Facebook Messenger also has a Windows desktop client that allows you to keep up with the messages you're sending through Facebook without picking up your phone.

Depending on where you are, you can use Facebook Messenger with just a name and a phone number, and even if you don't have the app installed, you can respond to messages sent to you using Messenger by confirming your phone number with Facebook. The app supports text, images, and location sharing, and even Wi-Fi voice calls. It works best when everyone you know is also using Facebook Messenger (and won't cost you a dime if they are), but it won't stop you if they're not (in which case it'll route your message out to traditional channels).

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Google Voice/Google Hangouts

Google Voice and Google Hangouts operate in very different ways, but we decided to combine them because Hangouts is very clearly the direction that Google is interested in going, and Voice may very well come along for the ride. Voice, among its many many other benefits, gives you a way to send and receive SMS messages without going through your carrier's SMS channels, see and respond to them on your PC in your Google Voice account. Hangouts on the other hand offers a completely data and Wi-Fi driven text replacement, which is more like a combination of IM, group texting, location sharing, photo sharing, and more, all available on your iOS or Android smartphone and on the desktop through any Google service or Google Talk.

While Voice can still handle calls, and those calls are completely free (within the US and Canada, international calls are subject to Google's rates, but are almost always lower than carrier rates), SMS messages sent to your Google Voice number live in Google Voice, and messages sent between Google Talk/Hangouts users stay in the Hangouts app. Both types of messages are available online, but most people consider it just a matter of time before they're merged, especially since Google Voice users can answer calls using Hangouts (although you can't place outbound calls from Hangouts). Still, if you have an Android phone or have Hangouts installed (or have any Google service open in a desktop web browser), you can chat instantly, send photos and video, bring other people in on the conversation, and even start a video call completely for free. If you prefer using a service to send SMS that doesn't cost you money and won't go through your carrier, Google Voice is a great option too.

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There you have it. Now that you've seen the nominees, it's time to put them to an all-out vote to determine the community favorite.

Honorable mentions this week go out to Line, which is exceptionally popular in Japan, where it's based. It's not limited to Japan though—it has over 200 million users in over 40 countries, and offers free calls, text, picture, video, and audio messages. It supports Android, iOS, and Windows Phone, and also features desktop clients for Windows and OS X so you can keep up with your friends on your desktop while your smartphone is charging or away from your fingertips. It missed the top five by a few nominations, but those of you who nominated it praised it for its ease of use and personalization options.

Also worth mentioning is the previously coveredGliph, not so much a full SMS replacement service like many of the above, but it does allow you to create a "cloak," which protects your identity, and send completely encrypted chats to anyone else. The key is, you'll need to know their cloak to use it, and as a bonus, the service allows you to send Bitcoin payments to other people. How useful that actually is is up to you. Still, the ability to create disposable addresses and encrypted chats is nice.

Have something to say about one of the contenders? Want to make the case for your personal favorite, even if it wasn't included in the list? Remember, the top five are based on your most popular nominations from the call for contenders thread from earlier in the week. Don't just complain about the top five, let us know what your preferred alternative is—and make your case for it—in the discussions below.

The Hive Five is based on reader nominations. As with most Hive Five posts, if your favorite was left out, it's not because we hate it—it's because it didn't get the nominations required in the call for contenders post to make the top five. We understand it's a bit of a popularity contest, but if you have a favorite, we want to hear about it. Have a suggestion for the Hive Five? Send us an email at tips+hivefive@lifehacker.com.

Photo by Melina Manfrinatti.

Once you've ensured that you aren't using an obvious pin number on your debit card, one step for extra security could be to write a fake pin number on the card.

Should the card ever get stolen, the criminal will probably try to use the pin number written on the card to withdraw your money. The secret is to write it in such a way that it's hard to read (difficult to parse eights and threes, for example). If you're lucky, they'll try three different incorrect PINs, which in most cases will lock out the card.

To be clear, if you know your card is stolen, you need to call and cancel it. But this is a nice extra layer of protection if you don't notice the theft right away.

LPT: Put a sticker with a fake PIN number on your debit card. Make the numbers hard to read. If you lose it and someone tries to use it (3+ times) the terminal will lock your account and eat the card. | Reddit

Photo by Chad McDermott (Shutterstock).

Google is said to have silently acquired the smartwatch manufacturer WIMM Labs last summer as part of an effort to bolster its own plans for wearable devices, reports GigaOM. WIMM Labs released its first smartwatch back in 2011, the WIMM One, which ran Android and included a platform for developers to code apps for it. We said at the time that the product had great potential, and now it looks like that potential could come to pass under the guidance of a bigger company.

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Paul Waldman at The American Prospect points out that nearly every American president eventually bombs something. And on average, we've bombed another nation at least once every 40 months since 1963. "If you're wondering why people all over the world view the United States as an arrogant bully, reserving for itself the right to rain down death from above on anyone it pleases whenever it pleases, well there you go." [via MoJo]

Sony's PlayStation 4 and Microsoft's Xbox One are easily two of the most highly anticipated launches of the year. Details continue to trickle out ahead of their launches in November, and we most recently got a look at the full lists of PS4 and Xbox One launch titles. Now, Sony's President of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida has quietly revealed a very cool PlayStation 4 feature that Sony hadn't previously announced. The PS4 and Xbox One each will have smartphone companion apps and various mobile integration features, and here's one of the new PlayStation's coolest: When a user purchases a PlayStation 4 game on his or her smartphone from anywhere in the world, the PS4 console at home will automatically wake, download the game, and then go back to sleep. Sony's PlayStation 4 is set to launch on November 15th starting at $399.99.

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Here is the best website about pencils. The Atlantic's Rebecca J. Rosen sings its praises:

So, the obvious question is, why pencils? What is it about pencils that merit this sort of attention, this level of devotion? Johnny Gamber, the site's creator and leader, answered that for me over email. What draws him to pencils are "their relative simplicity." But, at that same time, that simplicity obscures an object that, as Gamber sees it, is "amazing," if you just look closely enough. "While mostly made of wood, graphite and clay, they are wonders of engineering," he writes. "Even terrible pencils are made with astounding precision.

Yes, of course, the author loves our house instrument, the Blackwing 602.

Tired of cleaning up your own vomit? [Tenthlifecats via Arbroath]

Roaming charges no longer a problem in countries with their own Three network

Three UK has announced a new roaming scheme known as 'Feel at Home' that promises to abolish roaming charges when you go abroad. The catch; it's limited to seven countries at the moment, and those countries are ones that all have their own Three network. Still, it's a bold and welcome move from the carrier, and should take some of the pain of travelling with your smartphone away if you're hitting one of the supported locations. 

Visiting Republic of Ireland, Australia, Italy, Austria, Hong Kong, Sweden and Denmark, 'Feel at Home' will automatically activate the moment you turn on your phone allowing you to use your regular Three allowance while you're there with no extra charge. 

Three already offers competitive EU roaming rates, with access to your UK based allowance costing just £5 per day when within EU countries, but this is one step further in the right direction. 

Source: Three

With Rockstar Games' hugely anticipated Grand Theft Auto V less than a month away from its release, the company has decided to whet our appetites for the game a little more. Rockstar on Thursday released an official trailer for the game that introduced us to the game's three main characters and showed off all kinds of fun criminal mayhem such as bank robberies and carjackings. Grand Theft Auto V, the latest installment of the popular Rockstar franchise, lets gamers behave as immorally as they please in an open world setting that bears a striking resemblance to contemporary Los Angeles. GTA V is coming out for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 on September 17th. The full trailer follows below.

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In a proposed update to its data use policy, Facebook outlined new features that it says will make sharing information easier, but which also clear up any misconceptions you might have had about what you mean to the company. Yes, you are the product. 

Facebook, Now With More Faces Recognized

You might well have missed all this. The disclosures are scattered throughout an official document that outlines what Facebook is doing with all the information you make available to it. You know, the document most users don’t actually read.

As part of the proposed update, Facebook says it will include your profile image in the facial recognition database it uses—so far—to push tagging suggestions to users when they upload images. Facebook already identifies photos of you in images your friends upload by comparing them to other images you’ve been tagged in; adding your profile picture to the database is supposed to simplify tagging in images and make it “easier for you to share your memories and experiences with your friends.”

Curiously, this feature is not available in Europe due to concerns from privacy regulators. Which, of course, we don't actually have in the U.S.

An Ad Is An Ad Is An Ad

In addition, the updated policy outlines how Facebook uses personal information for advertising purposes. 

Personalized advertising is a huge revenue source for the social network. Between January 2011 and August 2012, Facebook charged advertisers $234 million for "Sponsored Stories," according to Reuters. Facebook's sponsored stories were basically ads that featured users' images and/or Likes as a way of overcoming their friends' resistance to promotional copy.

But in 2011, a group of users sued Facebook, alleging that Sponsored Stories violated user privacy. The company settled the suit and paid $20 million to the plaintiffs and agreed to clear up their privacy policies earlier this week, prompting the release of the proposed data policy.

The settlement required Facebook to include more detailed information on how exactly it was using personal information for Sponsored Stories, according to CNET. Facebook's proposed changes note that it uses your likes and interactions with advertisers, keywords from your posts, and what the company infers from your use of Facebook to show you content that you might find interesting.

The new wording also eliminates any mention of Sponsored Stories, instead calling them what they are—ads.   

It’s possible for users to opt out of both facial recognition tagging and having the social network use your information for advertising purposes. But, like changing most privacy settings on Facebook, it takes some clicking around. 

Photo via Ludovic Toinel

There's a mobile ecosystem battle raging, with Apple and Google racing to build end-to-end mobile monopolies. According to VisionMobile, "The triumph of iOS and Android is a testament to the superiority of ecosystems economics over legacy business models." Sadly, this triumph has a casualty, and that casualty is you.

It all worked great when Apple was a hardware company that dabbled in software, and when Google focused on cloud services but didn't veer into hardware. Now that these companies are encroaching on each others' turf, some essential things are getting lost in translation.

Like sync.

Apple Sinks On Sync

We live in an increasingly mobile world, which requires correspondingly tight synchronization between these devices. Sadly, even when buying into one vendor's end-to-end stack (hardware, software, cloud), sync is not guaranteed. At least, not with Apple.

I've written before about Apple's hit-or-mostly-miss approach to cloud services. Perhaps once a year I take up the topic, and each year the story is the same: Apple sync always feels like a kluge. 

This isn't because it hasn't had smart people working on the problem. I've worked with a number of people from Apple's MobileMe/iCloud team, and they're exceptional. But Apple never placed a premium on the work they did. Apple's DNA is amazing industrial design with elegant interfaces. Cloud? Not so much.

So I've dumped iCloud for everything but synchronization of Notes from my MacBook Air to my iPhone and iPad. It mostly works. Sometimes. Cloud is Apple's Achilles Heel.

Google's "Standard" Approach To Sync

Which is why I have turned to Google to handle synchronization of my most important data across devices. But even Google's sync has started to falter, though in its case the problem seems to have less to do with technical ability and more to do with political maneuvering. 

If you're an iPhone user that depends upon Google services like Gmail, Google Calendar or Google Contacts, life was great when Google supported Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) technology. You'd make a change on your phone and it would immediately be reflected on every other device. Brilliant.

But it also made life easy on rival platforms. So in a move ostensibly to embrace open standards like CalDAV and CardDAV, but very likely done to burn bridges to rival ecosystems, Google announced that starting January 30, 2013, new users wouldn't have access to EAS, and instead would need to use IMAP (email), CalDAV (Calendar) and CardDAV (Contacts). 

Suddenly, syncing Google's services with Apple's products doesn't work nearly as well. I can use Google's Gmail app, but it's not deeply integrated into Apple's iOS experience. If you want the premium integrated ecosystem experience of yesteryear, you're out of luck. Or out of sync, as the case may be. 

Sync At A Snail's Pace

The genius of EAS was that it was push-based, rather than Google's pull-based approach (or "fetch," in Apple's iOS terminology). In an iOS fetch world, things get around to synching every 15, 30 or 60 minutes, or you can arrange to only sync manually. 

This sounds like a minor thing until you move from a push-based world back into the fetch-based Stone Ages. I've been experimenting with Google's CalDAV and CardDAV today, and have found it somewhat infuriating. I made a change in my browser then had to run out the door to an appointment, and waited... and waited... and waited for the appointment to make its way to my device. There is a refresh button which I repeatedly tried pressing to get a manual sync moving, but it didn't seem to do anything.

Almost as bad, for those of us who use Google's services for both work and home, Google's sync has a range of known issues with iOS, including serious limitations in how it handles managed calendars. That is, in order to avoid jumping back and forth between tabs for home and work calendars, both of which are stored in Google, Google lets me manage my home calendar from my work calendar. 

But not on my iPhone. And enabling my work Google account and a separate personal Google account results in Google sending me double alerts for every event (I can't seem to turn one off). So not only is Google's new and improved sync terribly slow, but it's also overly chatty.

Can't We All Just Get Along?

Third-party tools don't help. I bought CalenMob to help me tame sync by completely bypassing Apple's iOS calendar app, and I almost as quickly decommissioned it. The interface is pretty, but the functionality is lacking. CalenMob entries make it to my iPhone Calendar app, but not to the Google server. (Bizarrely.) SMS notifications get turned into standard pop-up notifications. And so on.

Has anyone else found a way to live happily on Apple's hardware using Google's cloud services? Don't tell me, "Android comes with native integration of its services. " I know that. But the point is that I, and much of the market, isn't interested in an end-to-end, cradle-to-grave affiliation with one particular ecosystem. We want choice. And right now our only choice is broken-by-design sync.

How would you like a speaker system in your living room that was completely clear? Or, better yet, an active noise-canceling window that could mute the outside? The technology is already here, and a team of materials scientists at Harvard is showing us what’s now possible with ionic conduction, or using ions to carry the current that powers this new generation of electronics. The principle is embodied in the team's clear, disc-shaped speaker, details of which are published in the August 30th issue of Science.

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Gadget spam: It's not just for Samsung smartphones and tablets anymore. Samsung on Thursday unveiled three concepts for new printers that it says "will push the boundaries of innovation in the printing industries" by letting you use your printer as both a stereo and a smartphone dock, among other things.

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Digg Reader is a news service that wrangles the best stories from all over the web and delivers them to you in an attractive and sensible way. Using some social networking magic in addition to actual living humans, Digg decides what the most relevant and talked about stories of the day are. Today, they've released the Digg Reader app onto the play store and, my oh my, is it pretty.

   

All the makings of a great news app are there.

• Digg Diggs Android!
• [Review] My Taptu: Social Media + News + Eye Candy = Success
• Google Reader App Update Brings Widgets And Other Improvements
• Flipboard Updated To Version 1.9.7, Brings Audio To Your Newsfeeds

Digg Reader Released For Android And It's Beautiful was written by the awesome team at Android Police.