Sketchy crowdfunded privacy router gets a new corporate master (update)

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/11/sochule-buys-anonabox/

Remember Anonabox, the internet privacy router that was outed as a rebranded Chinese device and booted off of Kickstarter for fraud before it headed to Indiegogo? Well, it's getting another lease on life. Sochule, which is best known for its social hotel app HelloTel, tells us that it has snapped up the Anonabox team. The new parent company won't say much about what's happening next until a South by Southwest event on Friday. However, it's stressing that Anonabox founder August Germar is maintaining a similar role -- it apparently doesn't mind the controversies surrounding Germar and his networking gadget.

The Anonabox crew is promising to clear the air surrounding its "issues" at the event, by explaining why Kickstarter cancelled its campaign and showing off real live demo units. Indiegogo orders are already shipping, the company says. It's good to see the company taking those concerns head-on rather than staying silent on the matter. With that said, it's not certain that you'll get straightforward answers. Germar was caught claiming to be more involved in Tor (the anonymizing network that makes Anonabox possible) than he actually was, and this was after the Kickstarter fiasco -- it's not certain that he and his team are ready to tell the whole story.

Update: We've since been in touch with Sochule, which claims that it conducted "thorough vetting" before the acquisition. It also maintains that Tor executive director Andrew Lewman confirmed Germar's role at the privacy project.

Filed under: Networking, Internet

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Source: Anonabox

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Article: After 3 Years And $64M In Seed Funding, Onshape Launches The Mother Of All Products

Behind every product is a product, almost invariably a computer-aided design (CAD) software package known as Solidworks. If you are a designer and want to draft a belt buckle for a new handbag, you have to use this software to carefully extrude the metal contours so that it is ready for manufactu...

http://techcrunch.com/2015/03/09/onshape-launches-mother-of-all-products/

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PayPal acquires Israeli company that can predict future malware

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2015/03/11/paypal-security-center-israel/

It's always good news when a service that processes a lot of cash improves its security measures. PayPal, for instance, has just established a security center in Israel by acquiring a local company called CyActive. The company already has a Fraud and Risk Detection Center in Tel Aviv, but CyActive is a totally different beast: it "specializes in technology that can predict how malware will develop." It's sort of like Minority Report's PreCrime, except it uses predictive analytics instead of human precogs to foresee new cybersecurity threats. The startup's employees will now be in charge of implementing technology that will protect the payment platform from future cyberattacks.

The online payment processor is far from being the first company to expand into Israel by acquiring startups. Israel, especially Tel Aviv, has a thriving tech community, many of which specialize in cybersecurity. PayPal didn't mention how much it paid to snap up CyActive, but earlier reports suggest that the acquisition cost the company $60 million.

Filed under: Misc

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Source: PayPal

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drag2share: Google just added something to Android that could reduce phone theft

source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/NYMFrYO--RA/google-updates-lollipop-android-51-2015-3

Google is rolling out its first major Android update since it launched its new operating system back in November.

The most interesting improvement is a new feature that could help drive down phone theft.

With Device Protection turned on, your phone will stay locked until you sign in with your Google account — even if the phone gets reset to factory settings. If your phone gets stolen, thieves won't be able to steal your data and the phone will essentially be a brick.

Apple introduced a similar feature — which it called Activation Lock — in iOS 7 and it has driven iPhone thefts down 40% in San Francisco and 25% in New York. Device Protection will likely have the same effect for people who own Lollipop-running devices like Google's latest Nexus 6. 

It also added a few new features, like support for multiple SIM cards, high-definition voice calling, and a way to make your phone more secure.

The multiple SIM-card support will be particularly useful in Android One markets, where people may want to share the same phone among multiple family members. The update also lets users join Wi-Fi networks and control Bluetooth devices through the Quick Settings menu. 

The 5.1 update also improves Lollipop's performance and stability overall. When Lollipop 5.0 launched, Google called it its largest, most ambitious OS update ever, but it still had a bunch of bugs that Google has finally ironed out.

Althou gh all these improvements are nice, barely anyone will get to use them. Only 3.3% of Android devices are currently running Lollipop. 

Also, Google's announcement doesn't say anything about whether or not 5.1 fixes one of the biggest gripes about Lollipop: that it changed the way Android's silent mode works. 

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Apple has invented a new kind of gold (AAPL)

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/apple-watch-special-gold-ceramic-alloy-2015-3

On Monday, Apple is finally going to tell us a lot more about the long-anticipated Apple Watch. Namely: how much it costs.

Predictions for the price of the coveted gold "Edition" version of the Apple Watch are ranging as high as $10,000 (or even higher!) — but there are suggestions it could cost significantly less. Why? Because, as Dr. Drang points out on Leancrew, Apple says it has invented a new kind of gold.

We know the watch is going to be 18-karat gold. But 18K gold isn't pure gold — it's an alloy of three parts gold to one part other material.

What Apple has done is produce a new patented alloy that contains less gold per volume while retaining the same 3:1 ratio and 18K classification. The other material isn't one of the standard metals used in alloys; it's ceramic, which is less dense. Dr. Drang on Leancrew explains this in more detail (emphasis ours):

How can this be? It’s because Apple's gold is a metal matrix composite, not a standard alloy. Instead of mixing the gold with silver, copper, or other metals to make it harder, Apple is mixing it with low-density ceramic particles. The ceramic makes Apple's gold harder and more scratch-resistant — which Tim Cook touted during the September announcement — and it also makes it less dense overall.

As developer Marco Arment points out on his blog, this reduced gold content opens the door ! to a sig nificantly cheaper Apple Watch Edition than people are speculating. "The uncomfortable issue of an extremely expensive watch that's completely obsolete in a few years would all be significantly less problematic if the Edition was priced closer to $2,000-$3,000," he writes. "We don't know yet if Apple will do that, but it sure looks like they can."

Apple design chief Jony Ive also talked about Apple's special gold in a recent profile in the Financial Times. He explained how Apple's new gold methods made it "twice as hard as standard gold."

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