When Google introduced the new tabbed interface for Gmail, it also brought along some new ads under the Promotions tab.

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A couple months ago Fred della Faille was on a roof, looking out at a picturesque New York City skyline. He felt a sudden urge to take a photo with Instagram, like many of us would, but he wanted to capture the entire moment — not just the view from the top of a random rooftop. He wanted his face, his reaction, to be part of the scene he was documenting. As you flip through your Instagram feed, friends’ avatars scroll by, but none of them ever change. A face floats idly, never responding to the wonderful Bloody Mary its owner just consumed.

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On February 1 2013, the Federation Against Copyright Theft announced that they had joined police officers from the Economic Crime Unit to carry out raids in the UK.

FACT said they had targeted four addresses in the West Midlands following an investigation into the “sourcing and supply” of pirated films on the Internet

Although it was revealed that four men, aged 20, 22, 23 and 31, were arrested on suspicion of offences committed under the Copyright Act, exactly who they were and what they did was never made public.

However, TorrentFreak has now learned that those arrested were from two P2P release groups called 26K and RemixHD, a former admin of UnleashTheNet (the site run by busted release group IMAGiNE) and an individual from torrent site The Resistance. One of those arrested (we’ll call him ‘John’) agreed to tell TorrentFreak what happened.

“We were rudely awakened on that Friday morning just before 7am by CID, FACT and police officers. I opened the door and they issued me with a search warrant and placed me under arrest. My partner and my kids were also present and my kids were especially petrified,” John explained.

Pictures from one of the raids

“As it was early in the morning and I was under arrest I was not even allowed to make a coffee, but I was allowed outside for a smoke and not placed in handcuffs.”

At around 8am John was taken to the police station, checked in and placed in a cell for several hours. Meanwhile a total of 16 police and FACT investigators were searching through John’s home, eventually seizing 15 bags of property.

In the early afternoon, around 2pm, John was interviewed by a detective with two FACT officers present.

“FACT did not ask any questions but had given a typed sheet with questions for the detectives to ask on their behalf,” John says.

Eventually John was given bail and told to report back three months later, but a few weeks before that date he was informed that the police needed more time and a two month extension was issued.

Earlier this month John was again interviewed by police with FACT investigators present. After two hours John learned that there would be no charges and he was released a free man.

However, that might not be the end of the road. Even though the police aren’t pressing charges, FACT have taken possession of all the equipment seized during the raid on John’s home which means that in theory they could carry out a private prosecution.

Nevertheless, what we’re seeing here again are raids being carried out in the UK at FACT’s behest, but with the police losing interest at the eleventh hour. Last month it was revealed that police had finally lost interest in Feeling, a former admin at the now-defunct SceneTorrents.

Source: FACT Raids Hit Release Groups and Torrent Site Admin

When Mega-Search.me launched earlier this year there was a flurry of news reports branding it a Mega search engine.

Technically the site doesn’t search Kim Dotcom’s Mega. Instead, it allows users to submit links to files hosted on Mega and makes this repository searchable.

Thus far nearly 50,000 links have been added and the site is particularly popular in France where Mega has a large user base.

This week the search engine launched a new sister site, Mega-Stream.me, which makes it possible to stream video and audio directly from Mega. Streaming links appear in the search results but users can also paste in their own Mega links.

The streaming portal requires a decent internet connection and the VLC plugin for FireFox or Chrome, but works quite well for the files we tested. Here is a streamable Mega video of the Pirate Bay documentary TPB AFK that should start playing from Mega’s servers right away.

MEGA-Stream.me

The developers of the site note that there may be some hiccups since the service is still in beta. It is not possible to skip forward and backward, but pausing works fine.

Whether Kim Dotcom and the Mega team are happy with the unofficial streaming portal has yet to be seen.

While Mega-Stream.me has plenty of legal uses, most links on Mega-Search.me point to copyrighted material. This didn’t go unnoticed by the Mega team either. When the site launched earlier this year MEGA disabled access to all files the search engine linked to, legal or not.

When the search engine added a proper take-down procedure and stopped using the Mega logo the counterattack stopped, but Dotcom stressed that his team would be keeping a close eye on sites that don’t play by the rules.

“You will be seeing us acting aggressively towards sites that try to mimic Mega and use our logos. We’ll also go after sites that don’t have any takedown facilities, because that’s the biggest problem,” Dotcom told TorrentFreak at the time.

Mega-Stream.me has no index of links and is reminiscent of Dotcom’s now defunct Megavideo site, so unless it breaches the Mega terms of use in another way, we don’t expect that it will be targeted by Mega’s team in the near future.

Source: Dotcom’s Mega Gets Unofficial Video Streaming Portal

“By the end of this year, when someone sets up a new broadband account the settings to install family-friendly filters will be automatically selected. If you just click ‘next’ or ‘enter’, then the filters are automatically on,” David Cameron will announce today.

The prime minister is on a moral crusade to protect the country’s children – a commendable cause – but is this really the way to go about it?

Accepting the filters will supposedly stop adult material from being accessible from an Internet connection, but so far no one has been forthcoming about how this will be achieved. The prime minister does, however, indicate that this will be something controlled and administered remotely.

“And, in a really big step forward, all the ISPs have rewired their technology so that once your filters are installed, they will cover any device connected to your home internet account. No more hassle of downloading filters for every device, just one-click protection. One click to protect your whole home and keep your children safe,” he will say.

It seems likely that the ISPs will implement a system similar to the one currently being used by TalkTalk, as the prime minister will specifically single the ISP out for praise in his speech.

TalkTalk’s HomeSafe is a system which filters out URLs based on a remote blocklist provided and maintained by…..well, no one quite knows. This is worrying since when things don’t go quite to plan there’s no one to complain to.

As previously reported, when TalkTalk customers are asked whether they want to block file-sharing sites, TorrentFreak.com is rendered inaccessible. Despite our pleas and complaints that we are a news resource, the company said it would not remove us from their blocklist. We doubt we’re the only ones being silenced.

But of course, millions of households in the UK view adult material every day online anyway, so they will simply disable the filters when they get the chance. That’s just neutralized Cameron’s censorship efforts on that front in the blink of an eye. But there’s more.

The prime minister will also put search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo on notice that they will have to introduce further measures to block searches for illegal content such as child pornography. Google already has a zero-tolerance approach to images of child abuse so it’s not clear what more they can do, but they will have to says the PM.

“I have a very clear message for Google, Bing, Yahoo and the rest. You have a duty to act on this – and it is a moral duty. If there are technical obstacles to acting on [search engines], don’t just stand by and say nothing can be done; use your great brains to help overcome them.”

While few will argue against the need to protect children by cracking down on abusers, “illegal content” can take many forms – the law will shortly be updated to outlaw scenes of “simulated rape”, for example. The concern is that once ISPs and companies like Google are led down the censorship path, mission creep could come into play. Do they also have a “moral obligation” to protect, say, the content industries, once they have these systems in place?

The Cleanfeed system, first implemented in the by UK ISP BT, was designed to hide away images of abuse from Internet users but by 2011 it had been put to new use – blocking Usenet indexing site Newzbin2 following a court case initiated by the MPA. What began as “think of the children” eight years earlier later became “think of the copyright holders.” The chances seem high that history could repeat itself.

But it doesn’t stop there. If there is a moral obligation to censor on child safety grounds, will there also be calls to censor ‘potential’ terrorist material (and by whose definition) or those with extreme political views? If so, who will be the watchdog, and how transparent will his decisions be?

Finally, one should consider whether any of this is going to be effective in achieving its aims of stopping children becoming corrupted and abused. Frankly, it seems unlikely. Censorship of file-sharing sites is being carried out in the UK almost every month now and as time goes on users are becoming more and more adept at evading the blocks. A sampling of Twitter comments from the last few hours tells the story.

“Wow, they couldn’t even block Pirate Bay. Now they think they can take on porn. Morons,” said one unimpressed individual responding to BBC News.

“For the effectiveness of efforts to block anything on the internet see the ban on accessing the Pirate Bay,” said another.

Worryingly, if circumventing blocks is this easy for people casually looking for some MP3s or a TV show, imagine the simplicity for the hardened child abuser looking for his fix.

The solution is not to force ISPs and Google to hide this criminal behavior away in an effort to pretend it somehow doesn’t exist, but to hit it at its source. But the suggestion of how that may be achieved is also just a little bit scary.

According to the Guardian, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) is going to draw up a list of “abhorrent” search terms to enable the identification of people searching for this content.

Monitored Google searches? We definitely haven’t heard the last of this.

Update: A petition against the government’s plans is gathering pace, with 11,000+ signatures in a day.

Source: Porn to be Blocked in the UK – “What’s new?” Say Pirate Bay Users

Apple on Sunday said in an email to developers that a recent days-long developer portal outage was the result of a security breach in which data may have been compromised. "Last Thursday, an intruder attempted to secure personal information of our registered developers from our developer website," Apple said in the email. "Sensitive personal information was encrypted and cannot be accessed, however, we have not been able to rule out the possibility that some developers’ names, mailing addresses, and/or email addresses may have been accessed." According to 9to5Mac, security researcher Ibrahim Balic claims to have warned Apple of a major security hole just hours before the company took its developer portal offline. Balic says he was able to access first and last names of developers along with Apple IDs,email addresses and user IDs. A video from Balic follows below along with Apple's full email to developers.

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The Atlantic has this week published an excerpt from Dr. Paul Offit's Do You Believe in Magic?: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine, which takes a closer look at the conventional wisdom underpinning the multibillion-dollar vitamin supplement industry. Offit, who is credited with co-inventing a rotavirus vaccine, sets out the history of our modern fascination with heal-all pills before debunking "the vitamin myth" with a series of scientific studies. The majority of the research, he explains, turns up the surprising conclusion that taking supplements may be more deleterious than helpful to human health, particularly when it comes to the risk of developing cancer or heart disease.

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The Moto X is set to be revealed very soon, but it's already far from being a well-kept secret. Thanks to prolific phone leaker @evleaks and The Unlockr, the phone's basic colors, contours, and stock Android operating system are now all but confirmed thanks to leaked press shots. (Lo and behold, the press shots show off a device remarkably identical to the one that Eric Schmidt showed off earlier this month.) While the press renders show off black and white base models, customers will be able to choose from a variety of colored backs and trims to customize the phone's look.

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British Prime Minister David Cameron today will announce an aggressive plan to crack down on online pornography, as part of an ongoing campaign to protect children from its "corroding" influence. Under Cameron's plan, online porn will be blocked by default for all new UK household internet connections, meaning consumers will have to tell their internet service providers (ISPs) whether they want to disable the filters. The plan will also make it a crime to possess "extreme pornography," such as images or video of simulated rape, the Daily Mail reports.

"By the end of this year, when someone sets up a new broadband account the settings to install family-friendly filters will be automatically selected," Cameron will say in a speech to the...

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When you run out of room on your Apple iPad, your HTC One, or other mobile device without an SD card slot, where do you turn? Do you painstakingly delete one batch of vacation photos to make room for the next one? SanDisk believes it has an alternative. Today, it's introducing the SanDisk Connect, a wireless flash drive that can hold additional files and beam them to your device at will.

Mind you, that's not exactly a new idea. Companies like Seagate, Kingston, and AirStash have been trying to hawk wireless drives for years. What sets SanDisk apart is size: the SanDisk Connect crams a Wi-Fi radio, a microSD slot, a four-hour battery, and all its circuitry into a device that's really no bigger than a fancy USB thumbdrive. And, at $49.99...

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Idiots

The country’s first official SWAT team started in the late 1960s in Los Angeles. By 1975, there were approximately 500 such units. Today, there are thousands. According to surveys conducted by the criminologist Peter Kraska of Eastern Kentucky University, just 13% of towns between 25,000 and 50,000 people had a SWAT team in 1983. By 2005, the figure was up to 80%.

The number of raids conducted by SWAT-like police units has grown accordingly. In the 1970s, there were just a few hundred a year; by the early 1980s, there were some 3,000 a year. In 2005 (the last year for which Dr. Kraska collected data), there were approximately 50,000 raids.

A number of federal agencies also now have their own SWAT teams, including the Fish & Wildlife Service, NASA, the Consumer Products Safety Commission and the Department of the Interior. In 2011, the Department of Education’s SWAT team bungled a raid on a woman who was initially reported to be under investigation for not paying her student loans

This is a function of the idiotic drug wars and a judicial system that has no balls to stop this. And the more you read about these clowns the more you realize you are witnessing a modern version of the Keystone Kops. Unfortunately, they are armed to the teeth and trigger-happy.

There's nothing wrong with being a collector, but if the items you collect can be consumed, like books, movies, or games, you can save space and money by tracking the things you've completed, rather than filling your home with a physical collection.

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http://io9.com/meet-arrows-new-black-canary-in-the-first-season-2-tra-857877615

Our favorite kick-ass woman join Arrow.

Yeah, it's Summer Glau that is joining Arrow. Not much is revealed about who she is playing, unless the title gives it away.

http://www.ign.com/videos/2013/07/19/agents-of-shield-ming-na-wen-comic-con-2013

Ming Na unintentionally revealed it in her IGN interview.

In an announcement made today at Comic-Con 2013, Warner Bros. will bring Superman and Batman together in a follow-up to this year's Man of Steel. Originally reported by the Los Angeles Times, the unnamed film, set for a 2015 release, will be directed by Zach Snyder. Henry Cavill will reprise the role of Superman for the new film, while the man behind Batman's mask remains a mystery.

Director Zach Snyder revealed the news to a packed panel at Comic-Con, with a teaser image showing the iconic Batman symbol overlaid with Superman's emblem. "I'm so excited to begin working again with Henry Cavill in the world we created, and I can't wait to expand the DC Universe in this next chapter," Snyder said in a statement provided by The Hollywood...

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Comedian, actor and director was 60

It’s with deep sadness and no little shock that we must report that comedian, writer, actor, director and producer Mel Smith has died at the age of 60 following a heart attack.

Smith will likely be best remembered for his iconic comedy partnership with Griff Rhys Jones, appearances on shows such as Not The Nine O’Clock News and directing several comedy films including Bean.

Born and brought up in Chiswick, he attended New College, Oxford and then began a stint in theatre at the Royal Court and Bristol Old Vic. Initially, he was a director and producer, working behind the scenes, but had performed at the Edinburgh Festival while at university, and had met several of the Cambridge Footlights team.

From there sprang Not The Nine O’Clock News, followed by comedy collaborations with Bob Goody and his time with Rhys Jones. The latter pair also founded TalkBack Productions, which went on to become a comedy powerhouse, supporting the likes of Alan Partridge, Ali G and Smack The Pony.

As an actor, his film credits included The Tall Guy, Brain Donors, National Lampoon’s European Vacation, Twelfth Night and The Princess Bride as The Albino.

More recently, he returned to theatre acting and even enjoyed a reunion with Rhys Jones. He’d struggled with his health in the past. He’s survived by his wife Pam and stepson James. He will be missed.

http://insidetv.ew.com/2013/07/19/cobie-smulders-shield/

We basically knew it already, but it's been officially announced that she's in at least the pilot.

Gmail announced a new tabbed interface back in May, and today it rolled that interface out to everyone. Check out our guide to the new interface for more info on how to use it (and how to disable it if you don't like it).

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The major check against the unreasonable, horrible practices on the part of the TSA is that people who fly are wealthier, on average than people who don't -- and people who fly a lot are wealthier still. That meant that the worst stuff the TSA did was felt disproportionately by people who had a lot of political juice -- people who get listened to. Increasingly, though, rich people can opt out of the worst of TSA treatment by buying voluntary background checks and bypassing the rigmarole of the plebs. Now, the TSA is expanding its Pre-Check program, ensuring that pretty much everyone with any political clout will be spared the worst of it, letting the TSA's treatment for aviation's 99 percent spiral steadily downward, moving from mere Security Theater to Security Grand Guignol.

So that settles it. Moto's next big thing is set to be unveiled in New York City at the start of next month. Look closely in the bottom right corner and you'll even see the device modeled by Eric Schmidt late last week.

Needless to say, we'll be live from NYC on Aug. 1 to bring you full coverage of the Moto X launch.

Good news for everyone who didn't like the small, docked window for composing messages in Gmail: Google has listened to our complaints and is rolling out a new full-screen option.

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Have you ever wished you could not only track a delivery but know when it is less than 15 minutes from your door? This is something that UK delivery company Interlink Express/DPD will begin offering from August 5th, and some of the UK's biggest online retailers will be the first to take advantage of it. Amazon UK plans to use DPD's new 'Follow My Parcel' service to help customers track next-day (including Prime) packages in real-time and see exactly where their driver is on a delivery route.

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Down's syndrome happens when a human being ends up with an extra copy of chromosome 21 — three copies, instead of the normal two. But scientists say they might have found a way to make that extra chromosome functionally irrelevant. If they're right, it could lead to treatments that could someday reduce the symptoms of Down's. The trick is connected to another extra chromosome that the human body "turns off" all the time — the X. Women have two X chromosomes, of course, but only one ever gets to express itself. Scientists put the same mechanism to use on chromosome 21 in petri dish experiments.

A new leak claims to reveal the specs for Google's upcoming second-generation Nexus 7 tablet. According to Engadget, the slate will be equipped with a 7-inch display, a 1.5GHz quad-core processor, a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera and 5-megapixel camera on the back. Earlier rumors had suggested that the display would include a 1980 x 1200 pixel resolution, and it is still unclear what processor model the next-generation Nexus 7 will include. Some reports had claimed it would feature a Snapdragon 600 chipset, while others said it would include a Snapdragon S4 Pro CPU. The latest leak also notes that the device will run Android 4.3 and will feature wireless charging capabilities and a “slim port” for 1080p output. The second-generation Nexus 7 is expected to be released later this month or in early August. The 16GB model is said to be priced at $229, while the 32GB will reportedly be offered for $269. The leaked image follows below.

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Service allows game sync between devices

Mobile gaming giant Rovio has announced that its own game sync service is now available on Android. A rival to Google's own Google Play game services, Rovio Account addresses one of the major gripes of multi-device gamers by allowing them to easily sync progress across their devices. Multiple accounts also means multiple users can play the same game on the same device without overwriting each others' progress.

Rovio Account is now live for the original Angry Birds and The Croods, with more games to follow in the near future. The service is also launching today on Apple's iOS.

Source: Rovio

According to Sony Alpha Rumors, Sony is planning a "lens camera" accessory for mobile devices. The lens camera features the same 1-Inch 20.2-megapixel Exmor R sensor and f/1.8 Carl Zeiss lens as the Sony RX100 II. Sony Alpha Rumors cites "two trusted sources" confirming the lens-camera-hybrid will have a built-in battery, NFC, and Wi-Fi. It'll be able to pair with (and mount onto) a number of smartphones, which will then act as a "live view" screen for the camera.

As incredibly unlikely as it seems, Sony Alpha Rumors is adamant that this is a real product that will be released soon. The site says the rumor has a "6" level of certainty — its rumor scale usually tops out at 5. The lens camera detailed above will apparently be part of a...

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A woman who valet-parked her car at Rochester airport returned to find a notice informing her that the valet had searched her car, on orders from the TSA. The TSA does not search cars in the other garages, and they do not provide notice to valet parkers that their cars are subject to search. The TSA says it searches the parked cars because they are stored close enough to the terminal that a bomb could do serious damage.

John McCaffery, TSA, said, “No, those vehicles that are in the garage, short term long term parking, even if they carry pretty large amounts of explosives, they would not cause damage to the front of the airport. But for those who use the valet, the car could be there for a half hour or an hour so there is a vulnerability.”

News10NBC went to the valet parking and one of the attendants showed us the notice they put in the cars.

We asked, “You're required, they tell you, you have to search the car?” Valet Parking Attendant Frank Dettorre said, “I have to do it.”

My prediction: the TSA will erect a sign at the valet drop-off saying, "By valet parking, you agree that we can search your car." And that will be the end of it. Because in the 21st century, posting a notice of your unreasonable conduct is the same as getting consent for it.

TSA searches valet parked car [Berkeley Brean/WHEC.com]

Note 2 could go from 4.1 to 4.3, Telstra document suggests

The Samsung Galaxy Note 2 might never see Android 4.2, but instead jump straight to the next version of the OS — presumably Android 4.3. In its latest update advisory, Australian carrier Telstra said of the Galaxy Note 2 4.2 update —

"Samsung have elected globally to skip the 4.2.2 update for this device and will instead go to a newer version of Android. No schedule has been provided for this update."

There's been no official confirmation of this from Samsung, nor do we know whether this situation might affect Note 2 devices outside of Australia. But with the Android 4.3 launch seemingly close at hand, it wouldn't surprise us to see certain Android 4.1 phones skip directly to this next version of Jelly Bean.

While Android 4.2 is a relatively minor update for skinned devices, the extra time needed to roll out 4.3 could result Note 2 waiting a little longer for new TouchWiz features. In any case, hopefully the update situation will become clearer once Google officially unveils Android 4.3, something which is expected to occur at next Wednesday's San Francisco press event.

Source: Telstra

The city of Detroit has filed for chapter 9 bankruptcy protection, marking a years-long decline for what was once considered one of the country's leading technological and innovation centers. While a city filing for bankruptcy isn't unheard of (New York City nearly filed for bankruptcy in the '70s), Detroit is the largest US city to ever do so, reports The New York Times. While the city was once the fourth-largest in the US, its population has dropped dramatically in recent years — from 1.8 million in the 1950s to about 700,000 currently. Challenges the city has faced include a decreasing tax base left with a sprawling,139-square-mile city to maintain, "dysfunctional" city services, multiple attempts to manage growing debt while...

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