Nokia Lumia 925 review: lots of changes, but not much difference

It's been just half a year since Nokia revealed its first Windows Phone 8 device, and we've already got another flagship to review. The Lumia 925 marks a departure in design for Nokia -- it looks nothing like its predecessors, barring an expanse of screen and some capacitive Windows buttons. This time around, the phone is housed in an aluminum frame, making it Nokia's first metal smartphone since those heady Symbian days. This, alongside some hardware repositioning and (minor) specification changes has been enough for the Lumia 925 to weigh notably less than its 920 forebear -- and we think it's enough to feel in your hand. As we juggled the two Windows Phones ahead of this review, our first impressions were that the 925 was also much easier to hold, despite only a negligible difference in thickness.

This, alongside some hardware repositioning and (minor) specification changes has been enough for the Lumia 925 to weigh notably less than its 920 forebear

Arriving in three comparatively restrained monochrome hues (white, black and grey), Nokia's returned to OLED for its display tech, although it's the same 1,280 x 768 resolution as the rest of the 920 series and includes the company's anti-reflective screen technology for good measure. Its new Smart Camera app debuts on the Lumia 925, standing alongside the stock app and offering up some interesting new picture-taking options.

Otherwise, it's an awful lot like the Lumia 920, at least on paper: there's the same lauded 8.7-megapixel camera sensor (with an extra lens element), the same dual-core 1.5GHz processor and the same OS (albeit with some beta goodies). Nokia reckons that the phone is geared towards a different buyer than those who bought the Lumia 920, but alongside Verizon's recent US-only Lumia 928, is there enough to get fans that skipped on last year's model to buy this time around? And is there enough to persuade you not to hold out for what's on the horizon?

Hardware

Slim, understated and -- dare we say -- a whole lot more Android-esque, the Lumia 925 doesn't look like any other Lumia. Were those vibrant colors not pulling in customers, or is Nokia simply trying a different tack?

The Lumia 925 feels a lot safer, design-wise, and, well, a little blander than what we've seen before.

The company has said that the phone is aimed for people that wanted something that stands out a little less, but we've got mixed feelings on the current grey / black / white palette, even if it does go well with the new metal look. In the grand scheme of contemporary smartphone design, the Lumia 925 feels a lot safer, design-wise, and, well, a little blander than what we've seen before. However, it's another well-made phone, and to be clear, we particularly like the finish on the matte white model.

There's an almost ceramic texture to the phone that improves the grip and also lends it more of a flagship feel. And about that feel: we mentioned in our Lumia 920 review that Nokia's first Windows Phone 8 device was a bit cumbersome, a bit too heavy. Well, this one isn't. The Lumia 925 has shed around a quarter of the weight of the 920 (139g versus 185g), but that has also required some sacrifices: the new model arrives with 16GB of storage (down from 32), and no built-in wireless charging. If you're looking for some contactless charging, you'll need to purchase a cover that adds that functionality.

While thinner (a "volumetric" 8.5mm vs. 10.7mm) than the Lumia 920, the 925 fits so much better, so much more comfortably, in our hands. It's not quite as thin as Nokia would like you to believe -- if you line up both phones and take into account the camera protrusion, the two are pretty close. But once you grip the 925, you'll understand it isn't at all clunky like its predecessors. The frame itself is fashioned out of lightly textured aluminum, with machined buttons in the typical Windows Phone places. The 925's camera button has a strongly discernible two-stage depression, so you'll know when you're focusing with a half-press or capturing a photo with a full depression.

All the ports (micro-USB and headphone) now belong on the top edge, as well as the micro-SIM tray. If we had any complaints about the phone's build, we'd argue it isn't quite as polished as the Lumia 920. We loved those micro-drilled holes for the speaker and mics, and the micro-USB port that sits just below the surface of the Lumia 925 lacks the black outline we've got on our yellow Lumia 920. The headphone socket, oddly, does get that treatment. Within the plastic backing panel, you'll find Nokia's most recent imaging pride and joy: its 8.7-megapixel sensor with optical image stabilization, arriving with what appears to be an identical dual-LED flash (no xenon here, sadly). The camera unit protrudes slightly, but the lens is fortunately slightly recessed within the plastic that surrounds it, offering some protection when resting on flat surfaces. There are some loudspeaker grille holes at the bottom, although the position does blast the sound into your hands if you're holding it in portrait mode. Above that is a trio of contacts for that optional contactless charging cover. The phone itself is sealed, so there's no access to either the 2,000mAh battery or any slot for microSD expansion.

Melded into the aluminum frame is Nokia's new antenna system. The primary one resides in the bottom of the phone, with two more antennas in the top edge. Those black stripes then separate these antennas from the rest of the aluminum body -- Nokia says it's ensured that the antenna "maximizes use of radio bands," whether on GSM (850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900), WCDMA (850 / 900 / 1900 / 2100) or LTE (Bands 1, 3, 7, 8, 20) -- check out our performance section to see how it fared.

Display

With the Lumia 925's 4.5-inch AMOLED WXGA (1,280 x 768) display, we're offered something to compare against the existing Lumia 920, a phone that went for an IPS LCD over OLED. You've probably already heard our complaints about OLED, with the primary one being that bluish tint affecting whites and other shades -- and its something that still pervades this phone's display when viewing it at off angles. However, Nokia's attempted to amend this by adding a "Lumia Color Profile" option. We had ours largely set on enhanced colors and neutral white balance. You might recall a similar choice on Samsung smartphones using AMOLED from the Galaxy SII and onwards, but there's not just a handful of profiles here -- Nokia leaves the settings in your hands to adjust. Also nestled within the same settings option is the familiar high-sensitivity touch option that lets you use gloves or tap on the screen with your nails.

We prefer the AMOLED option over IPS LCD, in part because the black frame surrounding your Windows Phone home screen is nearly indistinguishable from the bezel

We prefer the AMOLED option over IPS LCD, in part because the black frame surrounding your Windows Phone home screen is nearly indistinguishable from the bezel, at least head-on. Better still, AMOLED's "black" pixels don't require any energy, meaning there's likely to be a minor battery-saving benefit for anyone who goes for the black Windows Phone customization over the white one. Viewing angles are great, and at wider angles, the screen brightness diminishes less on the 925's OLED compared to the IPS screen of the 920.

Nokia's coined the phrase PureMotion HD+ to describe its high-response screen and in practice, it means a display that doesn't blur much as you're scrolling through sites. For outdoors, there's a ClearBlack layer to aid readability, plus a high-brightness mode when you're desperate to browse the web outside. In another effort to slim down, the phone's Gorilla Glass 2 screen has shrunk to a 2.25D curvature (compared to the 2.5D curve on the Lumia 920). This lesser angle means not as much glass is used, which helps the phone shed mass in the form of both grams and millimeters. Even so, there's still more than enough curve to make swiping the screen a comfortable experience.

Camera

The hardware has been left largely unchanged since the Lumia 920, with an 8.7-megapixel sensor, ISO up to 800 and 1080p capture at 30 fps, all through an f/2.0 Carl Zeiss lens. Within that lens, there's been some improvements, however, although nothing quite as progressive (or impressive) as optical image stabilization or lossless zoom. Alongside noise-compression algorithms and software-based tweaks, Nokia's added a sixth glass element to the five-lens Carl Zeiss setup seen on the rest of the Lumia 920 series. We've been promised that this would improve the sharpness of images -- something we did indeed notice during our five days of shooting.

In addition to this review, we've been testing out the 925's camera against its 920 and 928 stablemates -- expect to see a full comparison very soon. For now, when pitted against the HTC One and the Lumia 920, the Lumia 925 offers generally sharper images than its Nokia sibling, while color balance and image reproduction (recording what was in front of our eyes on the screen) was better on the 925 over HTC's UltraPixel camera. Check out our sample below, and you'll see that while both Nokia phones use the same sensor, those behind-the-scenes improvements yield sharper images, and (at least in this example) better light metering. In the shot below, for instance, you'll notice finer detail on the pinecone texture. Hopefully it's that glass lens component at work.

Against the HTC One in low light, both devices delivered good results. If we had to call a winner, the Lumia inches past the One, with a more reliable white balance and finer detail, due to its higher megapixel count. We concentrated on shooting in the evening and in darker situations to demonstrate (again!) the quality of photos you're able to snap with Nokia's smartphone camera. We were delighted with some of the results. Nokia even set up a special photo session with performance group Limbo for journalists to put the company's new phone through its paces -- and that's where our sample video comes from.
Optical image stabilization really kicks in here, making your video footage look more like it came from a dedicated video camera rather than some slender smartphone. Nokia's audio recording skills also manage to deftly capture the often raucous band playing along, while the autofocus was able to keep the performance sharp despite some challenging lighting.
Nokia's new Smart Camera is worth talking about too, as it offers up new ways to capture and share what you see around you. It's the replacement for the burst-shot Lens app Smart Shoot, and Nokia promises that the brunt of the features on display here will appear on its other WP8 phones, so if you've already invested in a Lumia, please do read on, because you'll be getting similar photo-tinkering goodness very soon.

You can access the Smart Camera app either through its very own icon or through the Lens sub-menu on the standard camera UI. In fact, there's even a third way -- you can recalibrate the physical camera key to launch into Nokia's new smart iteration rather than the standard photo / video app. This then takes you into a sparse camera UI, where you can review previous shots, swap to different Windows Phone Lenses and use a touchscreen capture button. Once you've focused, a circular timer will show the duration of the burst photography. After a few seconds of thinking time (we'll come back to this unfortunate flaw) you'll be offered up a Best Shot, chosen by a man in a room Nokia's imaging algorithms as the best of your 10-shot burst collection.
Sometimes it's spot-on (it's better with crowds of faces). Other times it fails to grasp what you were looking to focus on. Sure, that brick wall may look crisp with good lighting, but you were trying to capture someone flying past on a scooter. That's when the second feature kicks in: swiping down once offers up Action Shot. This was by far our favorite, as it's capable of combining 10 images against a fixed backdrop. You can then select several frames, superimposing them on top of each other. There's a fade toggle that lets you select one primary image, with additional layers then slightly faded out. Better still, the interface is uncomplicated. Once you understand that the background needs to remain fixed, you'll be able to produce some eye-catching results.

The results aren't always perfect -- you'll often get some awkward ghosting when the camera can't quite detect the object in motion, but it's the standout addition for us. Motion Focus (seen on our Tube shot) is another new option, which detects your moving object, then blurs the surrounding area. There's a choice of a low- and high-blur effects, but expect light sources to sometimes ruin the illusion. Change Faces tries to ensure group shots come out with everyone's eyes open. You can tweak a picture person by person, selecting everyone's best smile from the 10 shots captured. Lastly, Remove Moving Objects, er, does what it says it will -- erasing that car that spoiled your beautiful cityscape. Again, like the Action Shot, you'll need to have taken a set of static shots, and the Lumia will then work out what you might not want in the photo. One of the biggest drawbacks for us is the several-second load time necessary to get Smart Cam up and running. It defeats the point of capturing something in motion if the 925 is languishing trying to get the app open. We're hoping Nokia makes it a priority to shave the app's start-up time, because it deserves the attention.

Software

Windows Phone. It's still not there. Readers will convene on the comment section at the end of this review to say they don't need the likes of Google+, Dropbox and Instagram, but these omissions represent a larger picture. These app makers aren't particularly bothered that they're missing out on Windows Phone, and as such, it's likely that future apps you do want won't make it to Microsoft's OS, even if they're already available on iOS and Android. So, it's pretty much the same ecosystem situation as we outlined in our Lumia 920 review, except Spotify's now made it to WP8 and you can expect to see a Halo game or two in the future.

Windows Phone. It's still not there.

Right, so that part's covered. Now on to the highlights. The superb Nokia Here maps are... here, as is Nokia Music and its accompanying free offline playlist feature. New additions include an FM radio tuner, which, like Android versions, requires some headphones to double up as an antenna. Also present is Data Sense, no longer a Verizon-only feature and offering up a similar experience (and statistics) to apps found (again) on Android -- a measurable way of keeping an eye on your data consumption. There's also the still-beta Glance screen that came installed on our review device, with Nokia giving a nod to its Symbian past with an always-on clock. There's even a very stylish red iteration you can choose during night hours, although we'd love to see Nokia expand on what sort of information is displayed here, beyond charging status and time. There's now the ability to wake up the phone with a double tap -- a Meego feature that's reappeared. It's a nice little trick, although having to then swipe upwards to unlock the phone seems a little redundant.
Not all the changes are for the better, however. Getting your Google account to work on the Lumia 925 also takes a little bit of extra work. Google Mail uses an outgoing SMTP email server, rather than the system still used on the Lumia 920. Technicalities aside, this means that the phone only polls for new mail every 15 minutes -- and that's the shortest interval. Meanwhile, on our companion 920, the phone downloads new content as it arrives. Google says it'll support its sync service for Windows Phone until the end of July and has said that "it's now possible to build a seamless sync experience using open protocols (IMAP, CalDAV and CardDAV) for Gmail, Google Calendar and Contacts." Unfortunately, that's not yet how it works on the Lumia 925. With some help from Nokia, we did manage to figure out a workaround through the phone's advanced setup for email, which downloads new content as it arrives, but it's unfortunately more complicated than it should be.

Battery life and performance

	Nokia Lumia 925	Nokia Lumia 920	HTC Windows Phone 8X
WPBench	216	227	221
Battery rundown	3:55	2:55	2:30
SunSpider 1.0 (ms, lower numbers are better)	905.4	903.2	914 (on 0.9.1)
AnTuTu (*GPU test off)	11,819*	11,457*	11,775

Running on the same dual-core 1.5GHz Snapdragon S4 processor seen on its predecessor, the Lumia 925 copes just fine flipping between apps in the multitasking menu, or pulling up media-dense websites. Running SunSpider 1.0 to test Internet Explorer on the new phone resulted in a decent score of 905.4ms, which is nearly identical to the 903.2ms we got on the Lumia 920. The Lumia 925 does a good job handling what's typically a pretty mediocre workload -- there's no GTA 3 here to push that Snapdragon processor to its limits, and the majority of games or apps available on Windows Phone can, if available, run on any mid-range Android device.
There's also 1GB of system memory, a standard feature on most top-end WP8 phones, alongside 16GB of storage. While you could argue that's half of what was delivered on last year's Lumia 920, 16GB is still relatively ample -- but we'd have paid a little more for the option of some microSD expansion. If Nokia can craft a micro-SIM tray, why not offer something elsewhere on the phone's perimeter for more data storage?

If Nokia can craft a micro-SIM tray, why not offer something elsewhere on the phone's perimeter for more data storage?

With the same battery, processor, resolution and screen size (if not technology), we expected a battery rundown to offer comparable times to the Lumia 920 on th same 2,000mAh battery, and we were right. As we've played with it over the last five days, we noticed that real-world use was actually longer than what we were expecting from a Nokia Windows Phone. Whether that's due to the AMOLED display (and how it handles black output without expending much power) or that always-on clock that meant we weren't as obsessive with powering the device on all the time, we were able to last a good day and a half on a single charge.
There's no contactless charging built-in; you'll have to pay an as-yet undecided amount for that pleasure, but it could be worth the investment. The covers are lightweight, although they (like most phone cases) do ruin the cleaner lines of the base hardware, adding to the thickness of the phone. But we like our Lumias with at least a bit of color, and a big chunk of red or yellow certainly helps there. During our speed tests on an EE 3G connection, we found that the Lumia 925 did in fact perform better than our polycarb-clad 920. Presumably due to the work done on the antenna, the aluminum model typically bested it by 1 Mbps on average. Speeds on HSPA+ circled around 6 Mbps down, and just shy of 1.5 Mbps up, in line with other smartphones on other networks. The Lumia 925 also gave us reliably clear, stable voice calls -- as we pretty much expect from Nokia.

Wrap-up

Nokia has fixed several of the biggest complaints leveled at the Lumia 920. In fact, the Lumia 925 feels like a Windows Phone pitched at people who think they're going to buy an Android phone next. The colors and design are more understated; the hardware is thinner and lighter, and arguably just as impressive as the HTC One or the iPhone. Our complaints about the Windows Phone ecosystem still stand, and we don't see that changing much in the next six months. Despite that, Nokia has improved on the software to ensure that while the Lumia 925 stands out from the rest of the series at launch, all of its smartphones will benefit from notable improvements like the Glance screen and the Smart Camera app. It's good news for Lumia phone owners, but makes the 925 a trickier sell over the 920, which is now £150 cheaper off-contract in the UK. Not to mention, the extra storage and built-in contactless charging you're losing when you choose the 925 instead.

There's yet another shadow hanging over the 925: EOS.

Additionally, there's yet another shadow hanging over the 925: EOS. Nokia has unabashedly used its imaging pedigree as a major selling point, and we've constantly pointed towards the lossless zoom-capable 808 PureView camera sensor as what we want to see on its Windows Phones. The rumors suggest we're swiftly approaching its arrival and we'd recommend readers wait and see exactly what Nokia's got planned before putting down money for the Lumia 925.

Edgar Alvarez contributed to this report.

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T-Mobile is more than a little eager to justify its acquisition of MetroPCS. To its relief, there's early evidence that the money was well spent: it says that MetroPCS' switch to a blend of HSPA+ and LTE is ahead of schedule, and it cites the just-started Bring Your Own Phone program as proof. The bigger carrier is already planning to expand MetroPCS' device mix, too. In addition to the recent launches of the Galaxy Exhibit and Optimus L9, T-Mobile's refreshed Galaxy S III is due on June 17th. We won't declare the transition a resounding success just yet, however -- when T-Mobile only expects to finish converting MetroPCS customers by 2015, there's still a lot of ground left to cover.

Migration of MetroPCS Customers to Nationwide 4G HSPA+ and LTE Network Ahead of Schedule
First devices connecting to 4G HSPA+ and LTE network become available for MetroPCS customers, offering a consistently outstanding wireless experience
BELLEVUE, Wash. - June 14, 2013 - Just six weeks after completing the combination of T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS, T-Mobile US, Inc. (NYSE: TMUS) today announced the migration of MetroPCS customers onto its 4G HSPA+ and LTE network is ahead of planned schedule. This migration will provide customers of both brands deeper LTE deployment and faster network performance - delivering on the benefits of the combined company.
"The moment that NYSE bell rang on May 1, we put it into high gear and hit the gas," said John Legere, president and chief executive officer of T-Mobile US, Inc. "We've already begun moving MetroPCS customers to our blazing-fast network. The best part is as they upgrade their phones, their wireless experience immediately gets better."
The company is making HSPA+ and LTE compatible devices available to MetroPCS customers as well as allowing them to bring their own unlocked compatible HSPA+ or LTE phone, providing them the opportunity to upgrade to a powerful 4G network. With approximately 60 percent of MetroPCS customers upgrading their phones every year, it is expected that migration of customers will continue at a rapid pace. The company expects full customer migration to be complete by the end of 2015.
MetroPCS customers in Boston, Las Vegas and Hartford, Conn. can now purchase two new HSPA+ Android(TM)-powered cutting-edge smartphones running on a nationwide 4G network, the LG Optimus L9TM and Samsung Galaxy ExhibitTM. On June 17, MetroPCS will also make available a refreshed version of the Samsung Galaxy S® III, which will take advantage of 4G LTE in addition to a nationwide 4G HSPA+ network1.
Additionally, MetroPCS launched a "Bring Your Own Phone" program in these markets, as well as Dallas, giving customers the option to bring their own compatible unlocked phone to gain access to the 4G HSPA+ and LTE network.
Migrating MetroPCS customers will also benefit customers of T-Mobile. As customers leave the MetroPCS network, the freed up spectrum can then be added to the company's growing 4G LTE network. Deploying the company's spectrum on a single network provides a path to double its initial super-fast 4G LTE deployment (to 20+20 MHz of 4G LTE) in approximately 90 percent of the top 25 metro areas planned for 2014 and beyond.
Indeed, just two weeks after becoming one company, T-Mobile leveraged the compatibility of existing MetroPCS 4G LTE handsets and enabled them to connect to its 4G LTE network in Las Vegas. This allowed the company to combine MetroPCS' 4G LTE spectrum with T-Mobile's spectrum, doubling the LTE spectrum deployment in Las Vegas and dramatically increasing data speeds for both T-Mobile and MetroPCS customers with capable devices. As the company's 4G LTE network expands to more cities, T-Mobile will continue to migrate MetroPCS customers with 4G LTE-capable handsets and leverage MetroPCS' spectrum to deepen the combined company's LTE coverage.
Independent third party tests of the company's 4G LTE in Las Vegas conducted before and after the addition of MetroPCS spectrum show that its 4G LTE has the fastest average download speeds in the city, with an increase of nearly 50 percent.
1 Coverage not available everywhere. Broad LTE coverage planned for 2013. Capable device and qualifying service required for 4G HSPA+ and LTE. LTE is a trademark of ETSI.

Alleged metallic Nokia EOS body teased again, this time with a dozen of them

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That baffling metallic Nokia EOS chassis we saw the other day? It's back, but this time the same leakster from Sina Weibo managed to get a shot of at least 12 of them, meaning the device has likely reached some sort of production stage. In another photo, we can see the same button arrangement -- presumably volume, power and camera -- that's already present on the current Lumia range. The strange thing is we've yet to see a cover plate that will match this seemingly smaller camera opening, but the square shape does make us wonder whether this will fit Pelican Imaging's 16-lens array camera. After all, Nokia did announce its investment in this plenoptic camera technology. Hopefully Elop will personally explain what's going on at his event on July 11th -- maybe with both this and the plastic EOS in his hands.

NVIDIA demos GRID streaming on OUYA, proves little boxes play big games (video)

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NVIDIA champions GRID as a perfect fit for cloud gaming platforms, but we haven't had much chance to see a good use case in action. The company was more than happy to oblige at E3, however, by streaming games from GRID to an OUYA system. As Android Central caught on video, the tiny console is well-suited to the job: its Tegra 3 and gamepad can comfortably handle remote delivery of an intensive game like Borderlands 2, at least in the controlled world of a trade show. While OUYA doesn't have much (official) access to NVIDIA's GRID at present, the booth demo was a possible vision of the future. It certainly gave OUYA an escape from its hassles on the street.

Inhabitat's Week in Green: underwater Discus Hotel, mold-detecting bowl and a terrarium for edible insects

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Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us -- it's the Week in Green.

By now "reinventing the wheel" has become a tired euphemism -- but that's exactly what skateboarder David Patrick did when he created the SharkWheel, a cube-shaped wheel that's surprisingly smoother and faster than conventional skateboard wheels. Patrick isn't the only inventor to challenge conventions this week, though. In an effort to develop a more sustainable source of protein, designer Mansour Ourasanah developed a terrarium for growing edible insects in your home. That invention might be a tough sell for some people, but this one is sure to be a crowd-pleaser: English telecommunications company Vodafone unveiled a sleeping bag that uses body heat to charge your gadgets as you sleep and a pair of shorts that harness kinetic energy to charge your cellphone. Meanwhile architect Richard Moreta Castillo unveiled plans for a solar-powered, man-made island that will clean up the ocean while generating renewable energy, and Tokyo installed an impressive bicycle elevator that can store as many as 144 bikes underground.
Three years ago, a team of architects, artists and engineers teamed up to create the Exbury Egg, a self-sustaining, floating office in England. The egg-shaped pod was finally completed last month, and it looks pretty amazing. In other architecture news, London-based design firm Baharash Architecture has been selected to design a massive green residential community in Dubai that will be powered by 600,000 square feet of solar cells. Vincent Callebaut just unveiled plans for the Swallow's Nest, a new zero-energy cultural center in Taiwan that will be shaped like a Möbius ring. Dutch architecture firm MVRDV completed an impressive renovation of a Seoul eyesore, transforming it into a modernist icon that glows from within with colorful LED lights. And Deep Ocean Technology received the green light to move ahead with construction on its underwater Discus Hotel in the Maldives.
In what could prove to be a major breakthrough for renewable energy, a team of scientists in Australia has developed a way to turn seawater into hydrogen, effectively generating a virtually unlimited clean energy source. Mongolia's first major wind energy project, which consists of 31 turbines, just switched online for the first time, hopefully marking the start of a new trend in the windswept country. Wind energy company McCamley has developed a new solar / wind turbine that generates energy from both the wind and sun, and in an effort to replace hazardous kerosene wick lamps, the company d.light has created a series of affordable solar LED lamps for people in rural Asia and Africa.
Bad news for coffee drinkers: A disease known as coffee rust fungus is spreading across coffee plantations in Central America, threatening to wipe out coffee crops. Chodha designed a brilliant mold-detecting bowl that can tell you when your fruit is beginning to go rotten. In 3D printing news, the company Bespoke Innovations has developed a line of beautiful 3D-printed custom covers for prosthetic legs that do away with the one-size-fits-all mentality. And NYC officials have introduced a bill that calls for regulating the production of 3D-printed guns. Things are getting desperate as bee populations continue to dwindle. To address the problem, researchers at Washington State University are creating a bee sperm bank to help diversify the bee gene pool. And a reminder: Don't forget to enter Inhabitat's latest giveaway for a chance to win a $400 electric composter from NatureMill.

Home Lohas brings hydroponic gardening into your room, rabbit guard not included

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While running between booths at Computex earlier this month, we were momentarily distracted by these vegetable boxes (maybe it was lunch time as well). As it turned out, this product was launched by Taiwan-based Home Lohas around the same time as when the expo started. The company pitches its hydroponic gardening appliance -- so the vegetables rely on nutritious water instead of soil -- as a hassle-free, low-power solution for growing your own greens, plus it's apparently the only solution in the market that doesn't need water circulation. With its full spectrum LED light, air pump and timers, harvest time can apparently be reduced by about 30 percent. It's simply a matter of filling up the water tank, adding the necessary nutrients and placing the seeded sponge on the tray (the package includes three types of organic fertilizers and some seeds).
The only downside is that this system costs NT$15,800 (about US$530) in Taiwan, and for some reason, it'll eventually be priced at US$680 in other markets. If that's too much, then stay tuned for a half-size model that's due Q4 this year.

Spot Global Phone review: a satellite phone for the masses

Finally, a phone made in the year 2013 that Zack Morris can approve of. All kidding aside, Spot's aptly titled Global Phone isn't the most -- shall we say, svelte -- of handsets, but it's capable of communicating in places that your iPhone could only dream of. Spot is actually a subsidiary of satellite communications giant Globalstar, who is no stranger to providing satellite-based service to argonauts the world over. The Global Phone is one of the company's first consumer-facing phones, taking the intrigue and mystery out of procuring one of those fancy sat phones -- you know, the ones that can seemingly only be acquired by James Bond's nemeses.
The target market for this handset is obvious: if you're an avid hiker, explorer, boater or adventurer, there's a high likelihood that you'll end up in a locale where traditional cell networks provide no coverage. In fact, it's shockingly easy to find dead zones these days -- just head to your nearest national park and stroll up a marked trail for a bit. At $499 for the device itself and month-to-month plans starting at $25, it's actually a reasonably priced addition to one's off-the-grid arsenal. (Have you seen the prices on subzero sleeping bags these days?)
But, is it a worthwhile addition? I recently traversed 1,600 miles of mostly desolate territory in the US Southwest in order to find out, and the answer lies just after the break.

iOS 7 gamepad leaked, features blurry Logitech G logo

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Apple may consider the iPhone to be a gaming device, but even it's willing to admit that traditional gaming demands a proper gamepad. The folks at Logitech apparently agree, and seem to be preparing to release an iPhone 5-compatible gamepad with its G-prefix branding. An image acquired by Kotaku shows four-button Logitech gamepad build around an iPhone shaped hole. A Lightning connector pokes at of the gap's right side, indicating a hard-wired (or at least device powered) peripheral. According to Kotaku, this will be just one of several third-party gamepads designed for iOS 7's Game Center overhaul, and Apple won't be providing a first-party solution, either. The blurry image ought to be flavored with the standard amount sodium chloride, but we wouldn't scoff at an officially supported gamepad solution.

Leaked Windows 8.1 screenshots show off Xbox Music, Movie Moments apps

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We already know about Microsoft's impending Windows 8 overhaul, but previews of app specific updates have been few and far between. Now, thanks to an apparent Windows Store update on leaked builds, we're starting to see what kind of updates we can expect. In addition to updates for the news, weather, travel, finance and sports apps (see the video after the break), images are leaking for the OS' new calculator application, sound recorder, Movie Moments and an Xbox Music redesign. It's hard to judge these tweaks without actually handling the update ourselves, but we'll say it again for good measure: we may have to review Windows 8 all over again.

Switched On: The five P's of the PS4

Throughout the history of home game consoles, it's been notoriously difficult for a leader in one generation to maintain its leadership in the next generation. Sony, for example, went from dominance of the sixth-generation console market, knocking Sega out of the hardware business as Microsoft was gearing up for the original Xbox, to a third-place finish in terms of installed base with its seventh-generation entry, the PlayStation 3. Last November, Switched On discussed how Nintendo turned its back on much of what made the Wii a success, at least in that console's early days. Sony, though, seems to have carefully studied the lessons of the PlayStation 3 and has made many changes in the PlayStation 4 to address that console's challenges.

The Processor

The impressive multi-core Cell processor developed in conjunction with Toshiba powered the PlayStation 3. Few debated that the Cell was extremely powerful, but it had a reputation of being difficult to develop for. With the PlayStation 4, Sony has moved to an x86-based architecture for the first time. In a bit of serendipity for cross-platform development, Microsoft, too, has switched back to an x86 processor architecture after a dalliance with PowerPC in the Xbox 360. In some ways, Microsoft has even more to gain from this since it should facilitate game development across Xbox One hardware and Windows PCs. That said, the switch in processors hasn't meant a retreat from Sony's historical focus on horsepower, as there's a strong case, at least on paper, for the PlayStation 4 to be the most powerful of the eighth-generation consoles.

The Purchase

The first PlayStation 3s had dedicated hardware to support running PlayStation 2 games natively. But that was an expense Sony cut as it sought to bring the PlayStation's price down. With the switch in processors, backward compatibility between the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 isn't practical; Sony will use its purchase of Gaikai to stream a back catalog of PlayStation 3 and older titles from the cloud. It remains to be seen how well this will actually work in the real world, but it should provide some bridge to the past.

The Price

The inclusion of the then-novel Blu-ray drive helped to make the PlayStation 3, with its original 60GB version debuting at $599, one of the most expensive consoles at launch. (The Neo Geo Advanced Entertainment System, which debuted in North America in 1991, cost $649.) Not only was price a setback, but the reliance on the difficult-to-source drives resulted in supply shortages for those willing to pay for the beefy console. At the 2013 E3, though, Sony announced that it would be pricing the PlayStation 4 at $399, landing it squarely between the $299 Nintendo Wii U and the $499 Xbox One. Of course, the Xbox One includes the formerly separate Kinect, which brings us to...

The Peripheral

Adding Sony's PlayStation Eye camera will tack another $59 onto the PlayStation 4's purchase price. The Eye can't do everything Kinect can do. Furthermore, it's too early to pass judgment on how much Kinect will contribute to the Xbox One as an integrated part of the system beyond such ancillary or non-gaming tasks like serving up slick player identification, enabling video chat and acting as a TV remote control. Integrating what could be considered a peripheral is always a tough decision. Including motion control helped to make the original Wii a hit, while including a tablet as a second screen hasn't driven interest in the Wii U. In any case, making the Eye a separate purchase, though, helps to give Sony the price advantage over Microsoft.

The Policies

Of course, depending on how many titles one buys, the initial console purchase is only a percentage of what one will spend on a platform over its lifetime. Sony won cheers at its E3 event for noting that it wouldn't employ any new provisions for preventing used disc-based game sales. However, Microsoft has basically said the same thing in that it is up to the publisher to determine such policies. If a third-party publisher wants to enforce provisions around used game sales, they may well find their own ways to do so. The key difference is that the PlayStation 4, unlike the Xbox One, won't require a daily check-in to validate licenses. And even that has been created with an eye toward having digital content available from virtually anywhere.
The game, so to speak, hasn't even begun. The next year will see how factors such as exclusives, third-party (including indie) support, clip sharing and cloud gaming affect the industry. For now, however, Sony's announcement -- or at least the way it made it -- combined with the PS4's tradeoff of a lower price for the lack of an included camera has given it the upper hand in terms of a perception advantage. With its pricing splitting the difference between the flagging Wii U and the potentially overreaching Xbox One, the PlayStation 4 could once again put Sony back on top in the home console market.

Saudi Arabia may block WhatsApp within weeks

Saudi Arabia plans to block WhatsApp in coming weeks if the makers of the mobile chat app don't comply with local regulations.
The warning comes after the Communications and Information Technology Commission blocked popular voice and messaging app Viber last week.
"We have been communicating with WhatsApp and other similar communication platforms to get them to cooperate and comply with the Saudi telecom providers, however nothing has come of this communication yet," Abdullah Al-Darrab, governor of the CITC, told English language Arab News.
One of the regulations stipulates that WhatsApp establish a local server that allows officials to monitor user activity, Al-Darrab told the news agency.

"We gave them a week to comply and have been communicating with them since March to no avail," he said. "Therefore, this has left us with no choice but to block these services, beginning with Viber."
CNET has contacted WhatsApp for comment and will update this report when we learn more.
The Saudi Arabian government has cracked down on messaging apps before, temporarily banning BlackBerry messenger services after BlackBerry reportedly didn't adhere to the country's regulatory requirements. The Saudi government complained at the time that the encrypted security used in the BlackBerry network prevented the government from monitoring communications channels, which it said could be used to threaten national security.
In March, Saudi officials threatened to block popular Internet chat, call, and messaging services Skype, WhatsApp, and Viber if they did not comply with local regulations.

Apple e-book trial: How the case has unfolded so far

Apple's e-book pricing trial has brought its fair share of funny moments and tense exchanges.
The Justice Department, which initially sued Apple and a handful of the nation's largest publishers slightly more than a year ago, contends Apple forced publishers to move to a model that artificially inflated the prices of digital books and hurt consumers. Apple has argued that it wasn't trying to change in the industry and that it was only trying to secure the best deal for itself.
With two weeks down and one week to go, most of the key witnesses have testified. There is no jury, so at the end of this coming week, Judge Denise Cote will have all the evidence to make her decision.
CNET has been there every step of the way, but in case you haven't followed every update, here's a recap of some of the trial highlights:
Documents, documents, and even more documents
The DOJ's case against Apple, as well as Apple's defense, largely hinges on e-mails and phone call records between executives at Apple, book publishers, and Amazon. Both sides have hundreds of documents that they're using to support their cases.One government chart, casually referred to in court as the "spider web," shows the number of calls between book publisher CEOs in December and January, the time they were negotiating with Apple about its iBookstore. The DOJ has used the chart as evidence that the publishers were talking and working together to collectively change e-book pricing. The DOJ also made a similar chart to show calls between publishers and Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of software and services.

Apple, meanwhile, has argued various e-mails were taken out of context, and it has presented its own items to show Apple wasn't colluding with the publishers.
If there's one thing CNET has learned from this trial, it's never put anything sensitive in writing.
Opening arguments
The trial kicked off June 3 in the district court of lower Manhattan. In opening arguments, the Justice Department said it would prove that Apple was the ringleader in a scheme to push digital book publishers toward raising their prices and that the conspiracy forced Amazon to change its e-book sales model. Apple, meanwhile, argued that its executives simply were using standard negotiation tactics to secure the best possible deal for Apple and its users.
Both gave a glimpse into what they'd be talking about in the upcoming weeks.

The DOJ created a "spider web" showing calls between CEOs of book publishers.

(Credit: U.S. Department of Justice)

Has the judge already made up her mind?
Before the trial even started, Judge Cote offered to share her initial thoughts with Apple and the DOJ. Unfortunately for Apple, Cote said that based on the evidence submitted, she believed Apple to be at fault. Apple attorney Orin Snyder brought those comments up shortly after he started his opening statement, asking Cote to "hit the delete button on any tentative view that might exist in the court's mind today."
Cote almost immediately cut off Snyder, saying that she only gave the opinion because both sides agreed to it, and that she wouldn't consider any documents as evidence until they're officially submitted. She noted that Apple had months to think about whether it wanted a tentative view, and her view was just that -- tentative.
"This isn't a vote about whether I like Apple or anyone else does," Cote told both sides. "The deck isn't stacked against Apple. ... You have my firm commitment ... that I will do my very best to follow the law."
Cote in recent days in the trial seemed to be coming around to Apple's arguments that it didn't force publishers to change their deals with Amazon.
Publishing bigwigs
CEOs of some of the country's biggest publishers have taken the stand in the trial. Penguin Group USA CEO David Shanks, Simon & Schuster CEO Carolyn Reidy, Harper Collins CEO Brian Murray, Macmillan CEO John Sargent, and Hachette CEO David Young have all testified about negotiations with Apple, as well as their relationships with Amazon. (Note: Simon & Schuster is owned by CNET parent company CBS.)
All believed Amazon's $9.99 pricing to be too low, and all wanted a way to change it. The CEOs have testified that they didn't believe they did anything wrong, but each company reached a deal with the DOJ to settle the government's suit against them.

Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of Internet software and services, arrives at court in Manhattan with an Apple attorney on Thursday.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

Eddy Cue's "minion"
Perhaps the funniest moment of the trial came during testimony by Simon & Schuster's Reidy. The DOJ presented e-mails between Reidy and her boss, CBS CEO Les Moonves, that talked about Reidy's conversations with Apple. She had initially met with Eddy Cue, but his deputy, Keith Moerer, later handled many conversations. Reidy told Moonves, via e-mail, that "A representative of Apple (not the head guy, but one of his minions) came to New York at the end of week before last to meet with all of the major publishers." Moerer, Apple's corporate representative in the trial, was in the courtroom when the comments were discussed.
"Sorry, Mr. Moerer," Judge Cote said as people seated in the courtroom looked at Moerer and laughed.
"Yes, my apologies," Reidy said. "That's just what I was thinking, your Honor."
"We're all minions from some perspective, even me," Cote responded.
Publishers call Amazon a bully
It may be Apple on trial, but Amazon's name comes up nearly as often. The company dominated the e-book market at the time Apple was forming iBooks, and publishers were worried about Amazon's low pricing. After reaching deals with Apple, all of the publishers changed their terms to in what in the industry is known as an agency model, where they set the pricing. Under the previous wholesale model, Amazon had set the prices, which were at $9.99 for the latest books.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs, now deceased, announced the first iPad in January 2010.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

Those conversations with Amazon weren't easy, the publishers testified, and Amazon even threatened them. The publishers portrayed themselves as victims of Amazon, and Apple attempted to draw parallels between itself and Amazon, showing that the different nuances of their respective deals are par for the course in the industry, and not a conspiracy to inflate prices. "They yelled and screamed and threatened," Penguin's Shanks said during his testimony the first week of the trial. "It was a very unpleasant meeting."
And Simon & Schuster's Reidy said Amazon threatened to stop selling her company's physical books along with its digital books.
Amazon, meanwhile, portrayed itself as the victim, forced into agreements it never wanted.
Insight into content deal negotiations
Apple, Amazon, and other big tech giants are understandably tight-lipped about their deal-making process. The trial has provided unprecedented insight into their wheeling and dealing. Apple has tried to show its actions are normal steps that all companies take when negotiating deals, and it has said reaching deals with publishers wasn't easy.
Some notable insights we've learned about Apple's tactics:

• Apple's dealmakers -- Cue, Moerer, and attorney Kevin Saul -- had only a couple of months to reach deals with publishers for iBooks. Cue testified he got the go-ahead from Jobs for iBooks in November 2009, and he had to have the deals done by the late-January iPad announcement.
• Apple commonly tells companies that "the train is leaving the station" to get them to sign deals. It often says how many companies have already signed on, and it will tell companies who else it's talking to.
• Apple typically pursues similar deals with all companies, saying it wants to give big and small companies "a level playing field."

Apple hammers Google
The most tense and "Law and Order"-like moment of the trial came on the last day of the first week. Apple started to pick away at the DOJ's claim that the tech giant conspired to inflate e-book prices by repeatedly and rapidly firing questions at a key Google witness.
The tactic paid off for lead Apple attorney Snyder, who began to wear down on Thomas Turvey, director of strategic relationships for Google. Turvey appeared increasingly frazzled and frustrated as the afternoon went on.

The Apple e-books price fixing trial is being argued in district court in Manhattan.

(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)

During his testimony, Turvey admitted that he couldn't remember which publishing executives he spoke to, the circumstances around those conversations, or any helpful details. He offered few specifics and kept referring to his written testimony. "You can't recall the single name of anyone at a single publisher?" Snyder asked.
"No," Turvey said, which became a common response.
Smoking gun or just a draft e-mail?
The DOJ in Week 2 of the trial presented an e-mail from Jobs that it said showed Apple required publishers to change their contracts with Amazon. In the message, Jobs responded to price tiers suggested by Cue:
"I can live with this, as long as they move Amazon to the agent model too for new releases for the first year. If they don't, I'm not sure we can be competitive..."
However, Apple's attorneys said the e-mail was simply a draft that had never been sent. Instead, they cited another version of the same e-mail, where Jobs said the following:
"I can live with this as long as they also agree to the other things you told me you can get: The retail price they will set for any book will be the LOWER of the applicable 'iTunes' price below OR the lowest wholesale price they offer the book at to anyone else, with our wholesale price being 70% of such price."
It's unclear whether both messages were drafts, or if one actually was sent. CNET has heard there are actually many drafts of that same message, but we'll have to see if they're presented in court. Apple attorney Snyder is likely to bring up the message during Cue's questioning Monday.

Eddy Cue
Cue is one of the most vital witnesses in the trial. He served as Jobs' right-hand man for nearly two decades, securing deals that helped Apple dominate markets such as music. The Justice Department has portrayed Cue as the "chief ringleader of the conspiracy" to control e-book pricing, and it has said his testimony would show Apple colluded with the publishers to boost digital book prices and hurt rivals such as Amazon. Conversely, Apple's attorneys are counting on Cue to reinforce their defense that Apple's actions simply were standard negotiation tactics. During his testimony Thursday, Cue admitted that Apple's deals with publishers caused e-book prices to rise, and he wasn't surprised when Amazon had to change its business terms with publishers.
The Justice Department also tried to show that Apple didn't care if consumers had to pay $12.99 or $14.99 for e-books instead of $9.99, but Cue disputed such comments.

"Our consumers were protected by my price points," he said. "I thought we were going to treat our consumers very, very fairly." Apple's questioning of Cue started Thursday afternoon but will resume next week.
Splitting up the music and book markets
Another tidbit from Cue's testimony is that Apple considered making a deal with Amazon to split up the digital book and music markets. Apple would get music, while Amazon would get books. That would have been a very big no-no in the eyes of the government, but Apple never actually pursued that deal.
The absentee witness -- Steve Jobs
Jobs may have died nearly two years ago, but his public and private comments have played a big role in the case. Along with the draft e-mail the DOJ presented, government attorneys also have cited comments Jobs made to The Wall Street Journal that book prices would be the same at Apple, Amazon, and other retailers, and remarks Jobs made to his biographer, Walter Isaacson:

Amazon screwed it up. It paid the wholesale price for some books, but started selling them below cost at $9.99. The publishers hated that--they thought it would trash their ability to sell hardcover books at $28. So before Apple even got on the scene, some booksellers were starting to withhold books from Amazon. So we told the publishers, "We'll go to the agency model, where you set the price, and we get our 30%, and yes, the customer pays a little more, but that's what you want anyway." But we also asked for a guarantee that if anybody else is selling the books cheaper than we are, then we can sell them at the lower price too. So they went to Amazon and said, "You're going to sign an agency contract or we're not going to give you the books."

Apple, meanwhile, has argued that it's difficult to interpret someone who can no longer explain himself. And Apple's attorneys -- as well as Cue -- have said the government has misinterpreted what Jobs actually meant.
What's up next week?

• Cue's back on the hot seat -- Although the seat won't be quite that hot, as it's Apple's lead attorney now questioning the executive. The judge has tended to ask questions of each witness, and she's likely to have a few for Cue.
• More experts and defense witnesses -- A debate has been going on during the trial about whether digital book prices did in fact rise after the iBookstore launched. Apple's attorneys have argued that pricing has fallen, but the Justice Department has said prices spiked "dramatically" after Apple's entry into the market. Both sides are presenting their own experts to back their claims.
• The DOJ is expected to rest its case after Cue's testimony is complete. After that, Apple is expected to call a couple of experts, as well as Theresa Horner, vice president of digital content at Barnes & Noble; and Robert McDonald, head of Apple's U.S. iBookstore.
• Closing arguments -- These are scheduled for Thursday and represent each side's last chance to make its case.

Ruling in 2008 put tech firms in data bind

In a secret court in Washington, Yahoo's top lawyers made their case. The government had sought help in spying on certain foreign users, without a warrant, and Yahoo had refused, saying the broad requests were unconstitutional.The judges disagreed. That left Yahoo with two choices: Hand over the data or break the law.
So Yahoo became part of the National Security Agency's secret Internet surveillance program, PRISM, according to leaked NSA documents, as did seven other Internet companies.
Like almost all the actions of the secret court, which operates under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the details of the disagreement with Yahoo were never made public beyond a heavily redacted court order, one of the few public documents to emerge from the court. The name of the company had not been revealed until now. Yahoo's involvement was confirmed by two people with knowledge of the proceedings. Yahoo declined to comment.
But the decision has had lasting repercussions for the dozens of companies that store troves of their users' personal information and receive these national security requests - it puts them on notice that they need not even try to test their legality. And despite the murky details, the case offers a glimpse of the push and pull among tech companies and the intelligence and law enforcement agencies that try to tap into the reams of personal data stored on their servers.
It also highlights a paradox of Silicon Valley: While tech companies eagerly vacuum up user data to track their users and sell ever more targeted ads, many also have a libertarian streak and resist sharing that data with the government.
"Even though they have an awful reputation on consumer privacy issues, when it comes to government privacy, they generally tend to put their users first," said Christopher Soghoian, a senior policy analyst studying technological surveillance at the American Civil Liberties Union. "There's this libertarian, pro-civil liberties vein that runs through the tech companies."
Lawyers who handle national security requests for tech companies say they rarely fight in court but frequently push back privately by negotiating with the government, even if they ultimately have to comply. In addition to Yahoo, which fought disclosures under FISA, others, including Google, Twitter, smaller communications providers and a group of librarians, have fought in court elements of National Security Letters, which the FBI uses to secretly collect information about Americans. Last year, the government issued more than 1,850 FISA requests and 15,000 National Security Letters.
"The tech companies try to pick their battles," said Stephen I. Vladeck, a law professor at American University who has challenged government counterterrorism surveillance. "Behind the scenes, different tech companies show different degrees of cooperativeness or pugnaciousness."
Vladeck added, however, that even if a company resisted, "that may not be enough, because any pushback is secret and, at the end of the day, even the most well-intentioned companies are not going to be standing in the shoes of their customers."
FISA requests can be as broad as seeking court approval to ask a company to turn over information about the online activities of people in a certain country. Between 2008 and 2012, only two of 8,591 applications were rejected, according to data gathered by the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit research center in Washington. Without obtaining court approval, intelligence agents can then add more specific requests - like names of individuals and additional Internet services to track - every day for a year.
National Security Letters are limited to the name, address, length of service and toll billing records of a service's subscribers.
Because national security requests ban recipients from acknowledging their existence, it is difficult to know how, and how often, the companies cooperate or resist. Small companies are more likely to take the government to court, lawyers said, because they have fewer government relationships and customers, and fewer disincentives to rock the boat. One of the few known challenges to a National Security Letter, for instance, came from a small Internet provider in New York, the Calyx Internet Access Corp.
The Yahoo ruling, from 2008, shows that the company argued that the order violated its users' Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures. The court called that worry "overblown."
"Notwithstanding the parade of horribles trotted out by the petitioner, it has presented no evidence of any actual harm, any egregious risk of error, or any broad potential for abuse," the court said, adding that the government's "efforts to protect national security should not be frustrated by the courts."
One of the most notable challenges to a National Security Letter came from an unidentified electronic communications service provider in San Francisco. In 2011, the company was presented with a letter from the FBI, asking for account information of a subscriber for an investigation into "international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities."
The company went to court. In March, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston ruled the information request, along with the gag order, unconstitutional. The case is under appeal, which is why the company cannot be named.
Google filed a challenge this year against 19 National Security Letters, and in May, Illston ruled against the company. Google was not identified in the case, but its involvement was confirmed by a person briefed on the case.
In 2011, Twitter successfully challenged a silence order on a National Security Letter related to WikiLeaks members.
Other companies are asking for permission to talk about national security requests. Google negotiated with Justice officials to publish the number of letters they received and were allowed to say they had each received between zero and 999 last year, as did Microsoft. The companies, along with Facebook and Twitter, said Tuesday that the government should give them more freedom to disclose national security requests.
The companies comply with a vast majority of nonsecret requests, including subpoenas and search warrants, by providing at least some of the data.
Even though the FISA court requires so-called minimization procedures to limit incidental eavesdropping on people not in the original order, including Americans, the scale of electronic communication is so vast that such information - say, on an email string - is often picked up, lawyers say.
Last year, the FISA court said the minimization rules were unconstitutional and Wednesday ruled that it had no objection to sharing that opinion publicly. It is now up to a federal court.

US: No wide data breaches at firms in cyber-attack

Federal prosecutors in New Jersey have provided new details on how an international cybercrime ring broken up this week accessed some customer accounts at more than a dozen leading financial institutions and payroll services.According to an amended complaint filed Thursday, the hackers used a number of unlawful means to obtain customer log-in information, such as usernames and passwords, to steal millions of dollars.
The government says no wider data breaches are alleged to have occurred.
Eight people are charged in the scheme.
Customer accounts were targeted at Aon Hewitt, Automated Data Processing Inc., Citibank, E-Trade, Electronic Payments Inc., Fundtech Holdings LLC, iPayment Inc., JPMorgan Chase Bank, Nordstrom Bank, PayPal, TD Ameritrade, TIAA-CREF, USAA, Veracity Payment Solutions Inc. and the payroll arm of the U.S. Department of Defense.

Google's Project Loon: Internet-beaming balloons to connect remote parts of the world

Wrinkled and skinny at first, the translucent, jellyfish-shaped balloons that Google released this week from a frozen field in the heart of New Zealand's South Island hardened into shiny pumpkins as they rose into the blue winter skies above Lake Tekapo, passing the first big test of a lofty goal to get the entire planet online.
It was the culmination of 18 months' work on what Google calls Project Loon, in recognition of how whacky the idea may sound. Developed in the secretive X lab that came up with a driverless car and web-surfing eyeglasses, the flimsy helium-filled inflatables beam the Internet down to earth as they sail past on the wind.
Still in their experimental stage, the balloons were the first of thousands that Google's leaders eventually hope to launch 20 kilometers (12 miles) into the stratosphere in order to bridge the gaping digital divide between the world's 4.8 billion unwired people and their 2.2 billion plugged-in counterparts.
If successful, the technology might allow countries to leapfrog the expense of laying fiber cable, dramatically increasing Internet usage in places such as Africa and Southeast Asia.
"It's a huge moonshot. A really big goal to go after," said project leader Mike Cassidy. "The power of the Internet is probably one of the most transformative technologies of our time."
The first person to get Google Balloon Internet access this week was Charles Nimmo, a farmer and entrepreneur in the small town of Leeston. He found the experience a little bemusing after he was one of 50 locals who signed up to be a tester for a project that was so secret, no one would explain to them what was happening. Technicians came to the volunteers' homes and attached to the outside walls bright red receivers the size of basketballs and resembling giant Google map pins.
Nimmo got the Internet for about 15 minutes before the balloon transmitting it sailed on past. His first stop on the Web was to check out the weather because he wanted to find out if it was an optimal time for "crutching" his sheep, a term he explained to the technicians refers to removing the wool around sheep's rear ends.
Nimmo is among the many rural folk, even in developed countries, that can't get broadband access. After ditching his dial-up four years ago in favor of satellite Internet service, he's found himself stuck with bills that sometimes exceed $1,000 in a single month.
"It's been weird," Nimmo said of the Google Balloon Internet experience. "But it's been exciting to be part of something new."
While the concept is new, people have used balloons for communication, transportation and entertainment for centuries. In recent years, the military and aeronautical researchers have used tethered balloons to beam Internet signals back to bases on earth.
Google's balloons fly free and out of eyesight, scavenging power from card table-sized solar panels that dangle below and gather enough charge in four hours to power them for a day as the balloons sail around the globe on the prevailing winds. Far below, ground stations with Internet capabilities about 100 kilometers (60 miles) apart bounce signals up to the balloons.
The signals would hop forward, from one balloon to the next, along a backbone of up to five balloons.
Each balloon would provide Internet service for an area twice the size of New York City, about 1,250 square kilometers (780 square miles), and terrain is not a challenge. They could stream Internet into Afghanistan's steep and winding Khyber Pass or Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, a country where the World Bank estimates four out of every 100 people are online.
There are plenty of catches, including a requirement that anyone using Google Balloon Internet would need a receiver plugged into their computer in order to receive the signal. Google is not talking costs at this point, although they're striving to make both the balloons and receivers as inexpensive as possible, dramatically less than laying cables.
The signals travel in the unlicensed spectrum, which means Google doesn't have to go through the onerous regulatory processes required for Internet providers using wireless communications networks or satellites. In New Zealand, the company worked with the Civil Aviation Authority on the trial. Google chose the country in part because of its remoteness. Cassidy said in the next phase of the trial they hope to get up to 300 balloons forming a ring on the 40th parallel south from New Zealand through Australia, Chile, Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina.
Christchurch was a symbolic launch site because some residents were cut off from online information for weeks following a 2011 earthquake that killed 185 people. Google believes balloon access could help places suffering natural disasters get quickly back online. Tania Gilchrist, a resident who signed up for the Google trial, feels lucky she lost her power for only about 10 hours on the day of the quake.
"After the initial upheaval, the Internet really came into play," she said. "It was how people coordinated relief efforts and let people know how to get in touch with agencies. It was really, really effective and it wasn't necessarily driven by the authorities."
At Google's mission control in Christchurch this week, a team of jet lagged engineers working at eight large laptops used wind data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to maneuver the balloons over snowy peaks, identifying the wind layer with the desired speed and direction and then adjusting balloons' altitudes so they floated in that layer.
"It's a very fundamentally democratic thing that what links everyone together is the sky and the winds," said Richard DeVaul, an MIT-trained scientist who founded Project Loon and helped develop Google Glass, hidden camera-equipped eyeglasses with a tiny computer display that responds to voice commands.
DeVaul initially thought their biggest challenge would be establishing the radio links from earth to sky, but in the end, one of the most complex parts was hand building strong, light, durable balloons that could handle temperature and pressure swings in the stratosphere.
Google engineers studied balloon science from NASA, the Defense Department and the Jet Propulsion Lab to design their own airships made of plastic films similar to grocery bags. Hundreds have been built so far.
He said they wouldn't interfere with aircraft because they fly well below satellites and twice as high as airplanes, and they downplayed concerns about surveillance, emphasizing that they would not carry cameras or any other extraneous equipment.
The balloons would be guided to collection points and replaced periodically. In cases when they failed, a parachute would deploy.
While there had been rumors, until now Google had refused to confirm the project. But there have been hints: In April, Google's executive chairman tweeted "For every person online, there are two who are not. By the end of the decade, everyone on Earth will be connected," prompting a flurry of speculative reports.
And international aid groups have been pushing for more connectivity for more than a decade.
In pilot projects, African farmers solved disease outbreaks after searching the Web, while in Bangladesh "online schools" bring teachers from Dhaka to children in remote classrooms through large screens and video conferencing.
Many experts said the project has the potential to fast-forward developing nations into the digital age, possibly impacting far more people than the Google X lab's first two projects: The glasses and a fleet of self-driving cars that have already logged hundreds of thousands of accident-free miles.
"Whole segments of the population would reap enormous benefits, from social inclusion to educational and economic opportunities," said DePauw University media studies professor Kevin Howley.
Temple University communications professor Patrick Murphy warned of mixed consequences, pointing to China and Brazil where Internet service increased democratic principles, prompting social movements and uprisings, but also a surge in consumerism that has resulted in environmental and health problems.
"The nutritional and medical information, farming techniques, democratic principles those are the wonderful parts of it," he said. "But you also have everyone wanting to drive a car, eat a steak, drink a Coke."
As the world's largest advertising network, Google itself stands to expand its own empire by bringing Internet to the masses: More users means more potential Google searchers, which in turn give the company more chances to display their lucrative ads.
Richard Bennett, a fellow with the nonprofit Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, was skeptical, noting that cell phones are being used far more in developing countries.
"I'm really glad that Google is doing this kind of speculative research," he said. "But it remains to be seen how practical any of these things are."
Ken Murdoch, a chief information officer for the nonprofit Save the Children, said the service would be "a tremendous key enabler" during natural disasters and humanitarian crises, when infrastructure can be nonexistent or paralyzed.
"The potential of a system that can restore connectivity within hours of a crisis hitting is tremendously exciting," agreed Imogen Wall at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, although she warned that the service must be robust. "If the service fails in a crisis, then lives are lost."
In Christchurch this week, the balloons were invisible in the sky except for an occasional glint, but people could see them if they happened to be in the remote countryside where they were launched or through binoculars, if they knew where to look.
Before heading to New Zealand, Google spent a few months secretly launching between two and five flights a week in California's central valley, prompting what Google's scientists said were a handful of unusual reports on local media.
"We were chasing balloons around from trucks on the ground," said DeVaul, "and people were calling in reports about UFOs."

Edward Snowden not welcome in US-loyalist Britain, says Assange

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange said on Friday that Britain had prevented NSA leaker Edward Snowden from flying to London out of loyalty to its ally, the United States.In an interview given to Reuters and others ahead of the first anniversary of his seeking refuge in the Ecuadorean embassy in London, Assange said he was concerned by reports that Britain had told airlines to stop Snowden from flying to London.
A spokesman for Britain's Home Office declined to comment on reports Britain had told airlines around the world to block Snowden, as did a spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron.
"The British government refused entry to this country of Edward Snowden. Why? Presumably because it doesn't want to end up with another Julian Assange," Assange said.
"The British government should be offering Mr Snowden asylum, not excluding him. I'm sure if you ask the population of the UK what they want, they want to protect Mr Snowden."
Snowden, a former U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) contractor, revealed information about the U.S. PRISM broad electronic surveillance system and fled to Hong Kong.
Assange, who remain in Ecuador's embassy for fear of arrest over Swedish sex allegations and possible extradition to the United States over Wikileaks' disclosure of U.S. government documents, said Britain's decision to block Snowden was misguided.
"The rule of law has come under strain in the UK. This is another example. The United Kingdom doesn't want to say no to the United States under any circumstances. Not in my case, and not in the case of Mr Snowden."
When asked about his own contacts with Snowden, Assange said he couldn't comment on "source-related issues".
Ecuadorean Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino is due to meet British Foreign Secretary William Hague in London on Monday to discuss Assange's case.
Assange denies the sexual allegations against him by two women in Sweden, but his supporters say they fear Sweden would extradite him to the United States if he agreed to go there.
Assange said he was encouraged by Snowden's actions.
"In the United States the ideals that I have fought for for so long are now catching on, being embodied in the extraordinary courage of individuals such as Edward Snowden. The renewed political and popular support for whistleblowers such as Edward Snowden shows that the times are changing."

Project Loon: 7 things to know about Google's Internet-beaming balloons

Google is experimenting with balloons that beam the Internet from the sky.
1. The helium-filled balloons are made from a thin polyethylene film and are 15 meters (49 feet) in diameter when fully inflated.
2. They float in the stratosphere about 20 kilometers (12 miles) above the Earth.
3. The balloons would sail on the stratosphere's winds in a continuous circuit around the globe. The balloons come equipped with flight computers, and Google would control the balloons' altitude from the ground, keeping them moving along a desired channel by using different winds at different heights.
4. Google says past attempts to control balloons have involved tethering them or using expensive motors to keep them in place. They say simply sailing with the winds was one of the company's breakthrough ideas.
5. Google says the balloons have the potential to provide Internet access far more cheaply, quickly and widely than traditional underground fiber cables. One downside is that computer users on the ground would need to install a receiver to get the signal.
6. The transmitter on each balloon would beam down the Internet to an area about 1,250 square kilometers (780 square miles) - twice the size of New York City.
7. Managing the flight of just one balloon in our complex and ever-changing atmosphere is a huge challenge. Trying to harmonize an entire fleet of thousands of them will be mind-boggling.

Facebook and Microsoft share US surveillance details

Facebook and Microsoft Corp. representatives said Friday night that after negotiations with national security officials their companies have been given permission to make new but still very limited revelations about government orders to turn over user data.The announcements come at the end of a week when Facebook, Microsoft and Google, normally rivals, had jointly pressured the Obama administration to loosen their legal gag on national security orders.
Those actions came after Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old American who works as a contract employee at the National Security Agency, revealed to The Guardian newspaper the existence of secret surveillance programs that gathered Americans' phone records and other data. The companies did not link their actions to Snowden's leaks.
Ted Ullyot, Facebook's general counsel, said in a statement that Facebook is only allowed to talk about total numbers and must give no specifics. But he said the permission it has received is still unprecedented, and the company was lobbying to reveal more.
Using the new guidelines, Ullyot said Facebook received between 9,000 and 10,000 government requests from all government entities from local to federal in the last six months of 2012, on topics including missing children investigations, fugitive tracking and terrorist threats. The requests involved the accounts of between 18,000 and 19,000 Facebook users.
The companies were not allowed to make public how many orders they received from a particular agency or on a particular subject. But the numbers do include all national security related requests including those submitted via national security letters and under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which companies had not previously been allowed to reveal.
The companies remain barred from revealing whether they've actually received FISA requests, and can only say that any they've received are included in the total reported figures.
Microsoft released similar numbers for the same period, but downplayed how much they revealed.
"We continue to believe that what we are permitted to publish continues to fall short of what is needed to help the community understand and debate these issues," John Frank, Microsoft's vice president and deputy general counsel said in a statement.
Frank said Microsoft received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 accounts.
Both attorneys emphasized in their statements that those affected by the orders represent a "tiny fraction" of their huge user bases.
Google did not release its own numbers, saying late Friday that it was waiting to be able to reveal more specific and meaningful information.
"We have always believed that it's important to differentiate between different types of government requests," Google said in a statement. "We already publish criminal requests separately from national security letters. Lumping the two categories together would be a step back for users. Our request to the government is clear: to be able to publish aggregate numbers of national security requests, including FISA disclosures, separately."
Facebook repeated recent assurances that the company scrutinizes every government request, and works aggressively to protect users' data. Facebook said it has a compliance rate of 79 percent on government requests.
"We frequently reject such requests outright, or require the government to substantially scale down its requests, or simply give the government much less data than it has requested," Ullyot said." And we respond only as required by law."

LG Optimus L7 II dual review

LG Mobiles has been trying to woo Indian customers with its affordable L II series of smartphones. These smartphones comprise of LG Optimus L3 II dual, L5 II dual and L7 II dual and were first showcased at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2013. The company had tasted success with its earlier L series of smartphones and it is aiming to repeat the history with its LII series as well.Priced at Rs. 18,650 LG Optimus L7 II dual is the most expensive smartphone of this series. The company also has a single SIM version of this smartphone, which is dubbed LG Optimus L7 II but in India so far only the dual-SIM version is available in the market.
In the recent past, there have been plenty of affordable Android smartphones launched that are under the price bracket of Rs. 20,000 and through this review we try to find out if LG Optimus L7 II dual will be make its mark or not.
Hardware/ Design
In terms of looks LG Optimus L7 II dual has a very run of the mill looks. It has a rectangular build with curved borders. The entire body is made of plastic but at the same time it does not look cheap.
The back panel of LG Optimus L7 II dual has a textured finish, which was missing in its predecessor, the LG Optimus L7 dual. The front is taken up by the 4.3-inch IPS (WVGA) touchscreen. Just below the screen are the four capacitive buttons for Back, Home, Menu and SIM-switch button. With the help of SIM-switch button you can easily swap the SIM before making a call or sending an SMS. It comes in very handy in terms of managing SIMs as one does not have to go to settings and change SIM functions in order to make a switch.
However, these capacitive buttons on the smartphone are not backlit, which makes them difficult to use in the dark.
On the left panel is the volume rocker button. Just above the volume rocker is the "Quick button", which is a physical button that you can customise to set a function or an app that you use the most. This button is quite conveniently placed and comes in quite handy. The right panel is the power/ standby button.
Display
The LG Optimus L7 II dual comes with 4.3-inch IPS 480x800 pixel (WVGA) display, which has a pixel density of around 216ppi. In the recent past, we have seen some companies launch HD smartphones at the same price point. In any case, most smartphones in the range of Rs. 15,000 price points come with at least a qHD display and so are disappointed with the display resolution of LG Optimus L7 II dual.
We were easily able to read the text on this smartphone, however watching videos or pictures is not a pleasant experience. You can even see slight pixelatiom on the display while watching videos and pictures.
The viewing angles of this smartphone are average but the colour reproduction is not very good. The under sun light visibility is passable. However, the screen is a finger print magnet and needs to be cleaned frequently.
The touch sensitivity of the screen is good, but in our experience it is a tad bit oversensitive and because of this we would end up terminating our calls accidently.
Software/ User Interface
The LG Optimus L7 II dual runs Android 4.1.2 (Jelly Bean) and the smartphone has been heavily skinned. The Korean smartphone has added its own Optimus UI 3.0 layer on top. One of the major advantages of this skin is that the customisations and UI extras that LG is offering with its flagship phones such as the Optimus G, are also available on this smartphone in the same or a lighter avatar.
LG also allows you to customise the Lock screen giving the ability to select four app shortcuts and a clock or calendar. Swiping anywhere else on the lock screen will take you to the last screen that you were on, before the smartphone went on standby. You can choose the animation effect that you would want to use on your smartphone when you swipe from one home screen to another or when you unlock the phone.
LG gives you the option of choosing from four different themes - Optimus, Biz, Cozywall and Marshmallow. All these four themes offer a different icon set, home screen wallpaper and app drawer background. These themes are a quite bright and fun. Amongst these themes, the Marshmallow theme seems designed for young girls and looks straight out of fairy tale books.
LG Optimus L7 II dual comes with five customisable home screens that you can fill with apps and widgets. The Korean smartphone maker has also skinned the notification tray and has included toggles for various settings including for sound, data, NFC, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Hotspot among others. It also features a shortcut for system settings, and a control for changing screen brightness.
LG also added its site of "Q apps" on this smartphones that includes QMemo, QTranslator and QSlide. QMemo app stands for Quick Menu and helps users to scribble notes on a blank page or on top of a screen shot. QTranslator app is a real-time translator. With this app you can scans text, which are in a different language using your camera.
Apart from these, LG Optimus L7 II dual also has Backup, Cell Broadcast, File Manager, File Share, LG TV, Memo app, Polaris Viewer (for office documents), Remote Call Service, Safety Care, Smart Care and Task Manager. This smartphone also comes with LG's own app store - SmartWorld, which can be used to download apps.
As we already mentioned that the LG has added a swap key to help manage both the SIM effectively. Even on the software side, LG has added a few touches that help the users conveniently manage their two SIMs. For example, there are two different colour schemes throughout the menus indicating which SIM card is in use. The primary SIM card is represented in blue colour and the other SIM is showed in magenta. This helps in clearly demarking which SIM is in use and seems quite thoughtful add on from LG's side.
Camera
The LG Optimus L7 II dual comes with an 8-megapixel auto-focus camera with a single LED flash. There is no dedicated camera key on the smartphone, but we did not miss it much as this smartphone, just like the Optimus G, can also take pictures with voice commands like 'cheese', 'kimchi', 'LG', 'Smile' and 'Whisky'
Pictures clicked through this camera are average in the broad sunlight but the edges appear to be slightly burned out. The colour reproduction of the pictures is satisfactory.
This smartphone also comes with a burst shot feature that enables you to take six quick continuous shots. However, moving images clicked are blurry and also there is a slight camera lag while taking pictures in the burst mode.
The experience of using video recording through the rear camera is average. You can capture videos of 480p at 30 frames per second.
The LG Optimus L7 II dual also comes with 0.3-megapixel front camera for taking self-images and making Skype calls. Images and videos captured through this camera are very grainy.
Performance
LG Optimus L7 II dual packs in 1GHz dual-core processor along with 768MB of RAM. Though the smartphone is able to perform day-to-day task without much hiccups, it is not ideal for multitasking for playing heavy games.
The experience of playing popular games such as Fruit Ninja, Temple Run 2 and Angry Birds is breezy. LG Optimus L3 II dual did not support the game Subway Surfer but the same is supported by this smartphone.
The smartphone comes with 4GB of internal storage, which can be expanded via microSD cards of up to 32GB. Furthermore, only 1.78GB memory is user accessible.
The LG Optimus L7 II dual comes with the native Android browser as well as Chrome and we found that it renders webpages well. The phone doesn't come with Adobe Flash pre-installed.
The speaker on the phone delivers good quality sound at high volume levels both through the speaker as well as the earphones. The call quality of LG Optimus L5 II dual is good too. The phone is a dual-SIM GSM phone with dual-standby.
The LG Optimus L7 II dual comes with a 2,460mAh battery and based on our experience, it will easily last a day and a half with medium usage.
Verdict
LG is trying hard to make its mark in the Indian smartphone market. However, we feel that the company has not really been able to nail the segment with LG Optimus L7 II dual, with the display being especially underwhelming.
We recommend having a look at the Nokia Lumia 720 (Review| Pictures) if you do not mind a Windows Phone 8 offering. Priced at Rs. 18,999, the Lumia 720 is an attractive proposition. The other option that you might want to look at is the Samsung Galaxy Grand Duos (Review| Pictures). This is slightly expensive than the LG Optimus L7 II dual but has great media capabilities. However, the display of the Samsung Galaxy Grand is not great either. Apart from these one can also look at the Micromax Canvas HD (Review| Pictures), which is a good value for money proposition.
Price: Rs. 18,650
Pros

• Solid build
• Good battery performance

Cons

• Underwhelming display

Ratings (Out of 5)
Design: 3
Display: 2.5
Performance: 2.5
Software: 3.5
Camera: 2.5
Battery Life: 4.5
Value for Money: 2.5
Overall: 2.5