Stakes High as Tesla Gets Ready to Pull the Wraps Off Model 3

Tesla fans around the world queued up to add their names to a reservation list in anticipation of Tesla Motors' planned Thursday night unveiling of its Model 3. The long-awaited new addition to the Tesla line is a more affordable sedan that targets not just early adopters, but a larger audience of luxury car owners. Company founder Elon Musk has shared key details in advance of the reveal. The Model 3 will offer a 200-mile range and will come with a $35,000 sticker price -- which could drop to around $27,500 after tax credits.

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Firm Wins Patent for Novel Way to Detect Spearphishing

Hackers in recent weeks have stepped up their efforts to steal employee tax information from companies in all kinds of industries. Typically, the information contained on IRS form W-2 is used to file false tax returns or steal someone's identity. The situation has become so bad that the IRS earlier this month issued an alert to human resources and payroll professionals about the subject: Beware of an emerging phishing email scheme that purports to be from company executives and requests personal information on employees.

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Microsoft Tells Devs to Talk to the Bots

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and members of his leadership team, speaking to developers Wednesday at the Build 2016 conference, introduced their vision to infuse human speech and machine learning into the company's consumer and enterprise businesses, positioning Microsoft as a major player in the cloud services and artificial intelligence space. Nadella and Executive VP Terry Myerson introduced a series of upgrades to Windows 10 and Cortana as well as technology called "Conversations as a Platform."

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Gadget Ogling: Honey, I Shrunk the iPhone

The iPhone SE packs almost everything from the iPhone 6s into a handset that looks almost identical to the iPhone 5. The only thing that's really missing is Force Touch. It's a smart play, trying to convince iPhone 4 and 5 owners that they can still upgrade to -- almost -- the latest model without the need to take on a device with a larger screen. Having had my iPhone 6 for around six months now, I've grown completely used to it. However, if I had an iPhone 5 that was on its last legs, I wouldn't hesitate to upgrade to the SE.

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For Many Users, Instagram Algorithm Is Not a Pretty Picture

Instagram on Monday moved to calm concerns among some users about a proposed change in the way content appears in their feeds. Celebrities such as Kylie Jenner and Cindy Crawford fueled the anxiety by urging their followers to enable a feature on their mobile devices that would notify them whenever those celebrities post to Instagram. "A lot of accounts began posting pictures and saying, 'You may not be able to see pictures like this anymore unless you turn on notifications,'" said analyst Jan Dawson.

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Latest iOS Upgrade Drives Users Buggy

Apple has been deluged with complaints from users who say the latest version of its mobile operating system is breaking links and crashing apps. "Following iOS 9.3 on iPhone 6splus update links in safari no longer open, then safari crashes -- any ideas how to fix? Same problem in Chrome," user John MacDonald posted Monday on Apple's support page on Twitter. Another user, Armando Couri Filho, had similar problems. "My IPhone 6 is not opening links from Safari, Mail and WhatsApp. What should I do?" he asked Apple support.

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Apricity OS Is Clean and Classy

If you're looking for a quick, clean and classy Linux distro, look no further than the Apricity OS beta. Either of the two available flavors -- GNOME or Cinnamon -- is sure to give you a pleasant computing experience. Apricity OS is an Arch Linux variant with rolling releases. The latest beta version was released last month. Betas can be frustrating to work with, and Arch Linux can be challenging, but Apricity's developers did their jobs well to ease that pain.

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You Rang? Microsoft's Holoportation Redefines Face-to-Face Communication

Microsoft on Monday unveiled its version of a teleporter, called "holoportation," which was designed to transmit 3D models of people anywhere in the world. Holoportation -- which leverages camera arrays for scanning -- compresses, transmits and reconstructs the 3D scans to Microsoft's HoloLens and other head-mounted displays. The tech allows wearers of augmented and virtual reality headsets to see and interact with remote users in 3D as if they were in the same space, according to Microsoft.

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Chinese National Cops Plea in Defense Secrets Case

A Chinese aviation and aerospace businessman last week pleaded guilty to participating in a conspiracy to steal sensitive military and export-controlled data from major U.S. defense contractors and send the information to China, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Su Bin, also known as Stephen Su and Stephen Subin, a resident of the People's Republic of China, entered the plea before Judge Christina A. Snyder. An indictment was issued against Su in 2014, alleging he was part of a criminal conspiracy to steal military technical data.

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Oculus Rift Offers the Best VR Experience Yet, Reviewers Say

The first reviews of the Oculus Rift surfaced Monday, and reviewers praised the potential of the virtual reality system while pointing out some obvious concerns. The headset display is well-crafted and durable, but drawbacks include the cost -- $600 -- and the fact that it requires a powerful gaming system to run it, according to some reviews. "Just as with every new technological milestone, it has the potential to change the world. But at this early stage, only a few can afford it," Devindra Hardawar wrote.

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A Dramatic 16 Years for 4 Tech Titans

Following Apple's announcement last week, I noticed a number of reports on how disappointed customers were that there was nothing they wanted to wait in line for hours to buy. I personally thought they should have been excited about that, because I hate to stand in lines. I've never really figured out an Apple fanatic's penchant for pain. Still, it is very clear that today's Apple is a very different company than it was just six years ago. That got me thinking. Dell, HP and Lenovo also are very different.

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Microsoft Apologizes for Corrupted Chatbot's Nasty Comments

Microsoft last week apologized for its Tay chatbot's bad behavior. It took the machine learning system offline, only 24 hours into its short life, after Twitter trolls got it to deny the Holocaust and elicit pro-Nazi and anti-feminist remarks. "We are deeply sorry for the unintended offensive and hurtful tweets from Tay, which do not represent who we are or what we stand for, nor how we designed Tay," said Peter Lee, corporate vice president at Microsoft Research. The company had launched Tay on Twitter with the goal of learning about and improving the artificial intelligence.

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Dish Networks' Hopper 3 Takes a Leap and a Bound

Dish Network continues to up its game with its whole-home TV set-top box and accompanying devices. Since introducing its Sling-based TV-anywhere solution and whole-home DVR three years ago, Dish has remained one hop ahead of the competition. Since its launch, the Hopper has featured Sling technology that allowed for the streaming of content from the living room to almost anywhere in the world that had an Internet connection. Now, another major upgrade to the service could be a game changer for TV viewers.

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The Brand New Made-in-Space Frontier

What happens when you're 220 miles above Earth on the International Space Station and you need a tool you don't have? You can print one yourself. In 2014, American astronauts for the first time printed a tool -- a ratchet wrench -- using a design file sent from NASA on the ground to the 3D printer spinning about in space. The feat was straight of visions of Star Trek's replicator -- and it was only the first step to much larger miracles in space. Here's what's happening now and how 3D printing is changing the future of space travel.

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Google Aims to Build a Better iOS Keyboard

Google has been developing a third-party keyboard for Apple devices in an effort to increase the number of Google searches on iOS, according to a news report published Tuesday. The keyboard, which is being tested internally, reportedly would incorporate a number of search options and a Swype-like feature to guess the intended word when a user slides a finger from one letter to another. It apparently has buttons for picture and GIF searches, and would let users launch traditional Web searches when they tap the Google logo.

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Ransomware's Aftermath Can Be More Costly Than Ransom

Downtime caused by a ransomware attack can cost a company more than paying a ransom to recover data encrypted by the malware, according to a report released last week by Intermedia. Nearly three-quarters (72 percent) of companies infected with ransomware could not access their data for at least two days because of the incident, and 32 percent couldn't access their data for five days or more, according to the report, which was based on a survey of some 300 IT consultants.

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Google Says Sayonara to Chrome App Launcher

Google on Tuesday announced that it was shutting down the Chrome app launcher everywhere but in the Chrome OS. That means users who like to launch their favorite Google apps from a menu will have to settle for launching them only within the Google Chrome browser or through shortcuts in their bookmark bar. Windows, Mac and Linux users prefer launching their apps within Chrome, according to Marc Pawliger, engineering director for Chrome. Removing the launcher is part of Google's ongoing process of simplifying and streamlining browser features.

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FBI Would Rather Crack Terrorist's iPhone Itself

On the eve of a court showdown with Apple over unlocking the iPhone of one of the San Bernardino shooters, the FBI put its case on pause Monday to pursue an attack method that could allow it to crack the phone without Apple's assistance. After reviewing the FBI's request for postponement of oral arguments in the case, a U.S. District Court in California ruled that good cause had been shown by the government for the delay and ordered it to file a status report with the court on April 5.

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Apple's CareKit Gives More Power to the Patient

Perhaps worthy of more attention than it received at Apple's Loop You In event on Monday is CareKit. The open source platform will allow developers to create consumer-focused applications to help patients communicate with healthcare providers and closely monitor their own health conditions. The company, which entered the medical research space in 2015 with the release of ResearchKit, will use CareKit to expand the range of applications designed to automate the communications among researchers, medical field workers, patients and others.

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Gadget Ogling: Bathroom Bots, Bedroom Bulbs, and Doorbell Detectives

Can you imagine a time before robot vacuum cleaners? The world was a messier place, certainly in the homes of those with too little impetus to pick up a broom or vacuum cleaner once in a while. Thankfully, for those of us who don't mind sweeping but are less enthused about using the mop, robotic help is on its way in a more affordable model. The Braava Jet from iRobot is a smaller version of the Braava, and has an attractive price tag: $199. Since it is more compact than the Braava, it should be more likely to find its way into the darker corners of your kitchen and bathroom.

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New Stagefright Exploit Takes a Bow

Stagefright, a multimedia library in Android 2.2 and higher, has been exploited again, according to news reports published last week. Zimperium last year reported a Stagefright exploit that it said exposed 95 percent of Android devices. Google incorporated a patch Zimperium created for the exploit into its code repositories. Details of the latest exploit, named "Metaphor," were published earlier this month in a paper from NorthBit. Metaphor affects Android 2.2-4.0 and 5.0-5.1, or about 30 percent of all Android devices.

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Hopkins Boffins Break iMessage Encryption

A team of researchers at Johns Hopkins University has found a way to crack open files sent as encrypted instant messages in Apple's iMessage app, according to news reports published Monday. Although it took months to do, the researchers were able to brute force a 64-bit encryption key, allowing them to unscramble an image file stored in Apple's iCloud. In order to intercept the transmission containing the key, they wrote software to mimic an Apple server. The transmission contained a link to a photo in Apple's cloud and the encryption key.

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Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs, DoT Team to Ease Gridlock

The U.S. Department of Transportation last week announced a partnership with Alphabet subsidiary Sidewalk Labs to help cities ease gridlock using Google's vast array of technology and traffic data. Sidewalk Labs will work with the seven finalists in the DoT's Smart City Challenge on a plan to help ease congestion and improve mobility to disadvantaged communities under a program called "Flow." The program will use anonymized smartphone data and sensor data from Link WiFi kiosks to create a real-time view of road and curb usage.

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Car Computers Are Vehicles for Hacking, Warns FBI

The FBI, the U.S. Department of Transportation and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration last week issued a warning about the threat of automobile hacking. Computers that control functions such as steering, braking, acceleration, lights and windshield wipers, as well as wireless technologies used in keyless entry, ignition control, tire pressure monitoring, and diagnostic and navigation systems, provide portals for cyberattack, the agencies said.

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Apple Brings Back That 4-Inch Feeling

Apple on Monday announced a pair of new products in old sizes -- the 4-inch iPhone SE and the 9.7-inch iPad Pro -- banking on user preferences for the familiar form factors to lessen their hesitancy to upgrade. Although Apple's hour-long "Loop You In" event was short on surprises, it was slimmer on filler as well. Among the notable extras, Apple announced a price cut bringing the Apple Watch to $300, along with a selection of new bands. It also announced support for Apple TV folders and the release of iOS 9.3.

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Scientists Track Sloshed Tweeters in Real Time

Applied machine learning techniques can identify tweeters' behaviors in real time and locate them to within 100 meters, according to a paper Rochester University computer scientists published earlier this month. The team focused on discovering patterns of alcohol use in urban and suburban settings to better understand where and how people drink. Drinking results in about 75,000 deaths annually in the United States, and the information could be used in public health efforts.

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Could Anonymous Get Trump Elected?

Much of the analysis that I've seen regarding the U.S. presidential election season concludes that it is progressing like the Goldwater vs. Johnson election in the 1960s, when the Republican Party torpedoed its own candidate, ensuring a Democratic Party win. This is happening despite statistics that suggest Hillary Clinton is an extremely weak candidate. At least, that was the case until Anonymous decided to jump into the fight to take Trump out. I think that development actually could push this divisive candidate over the top.

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Malware Exploits Apple DRM to Infect iPhones

Security researchers at Palo Alto Networks Unit 42 on Wednesday announced they had discovered in the wild a method of infecting nonjailbroken iPhones with malware by exploiting design flaws in Apple's digital rights management technology. The flaw has been exploited since 2013 largely as a means to pirate iOS software, but this is the first time it's been used to infect iPhones with malware, researcher Claud Xiao said. "This is a fairly sophisticated attack," said Steve Kelly, president of Intego.

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Google Reports Web Traffic Encryption Progress

Google this week launched a section of its transparency report to track the progress of efforts to encrypt the Web, by both the company and third-party sites estimated to account for about 25 percent of Web traffic. The report will be updated weekly with information about progress the company has made toward implementing HTTPS by default across its services. Gmail, Drive and Search have long been secured with HTTPS, and traffic from products such as ads and Blogger were added over the past year, Google said.

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Android, iOS on Opposite Sides of Encryption Divide

Consumers' understanding of what encryption does apparently doesn't determine whether they use the technology, as iPhone owners are much more likely to use encryption than Android users. Most Android phones are not encrypted, either by user choice or manufacturer design. About 95 percent of all iPhones reportedly are encrypted, compared with less than 10 percent of Android phones. Why? Google has been slow in mandating full-disk encryption. The feature generally is turned off by default in Android smartphones that have it.

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ProtonMail Launches Encrypted Email for iOS, Android

ProtonMail, which offers encrypted email, on Thursday launched free iOS and Android mobile apps worldwide, through the iTunes App Store and Google Play, respectively. They have been in beta since August, company CEO Andy Yen said. The email service features end-to-end encryption; emails stored on ProtonMail's servers also are encrypted and thus can't be accessed. Based in Switzerland, its servers are out of reach of United States authorities. All ProtonMail client-side code is open source and is reviewed by the ProtonMail community.

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Apple Ransomware Reveals Cert Problem

Researchers last week discovered the first ransomware in the wild aimed at Apple's hardware platform. While the threat was subdued quickly, it exposed the weakness of digital certificates in authenticating software to devices. The ransomware appeared as a legitimate application because it contained a digital certificate stolen from a bona fide Mac developer in Turkey. The certificate was used to sign an application of another developer and post a malicious update at the developer's website.

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Celebgate Hacker Strikes Plea Deal

Prosecutors for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California on Tuesday announced they had reached a plea agreement with Ryan Collins, a Pennsylvania resident, over charges that he hacked Apple and Google email accounts of more than 100 people back in 2014. The allegations stemmed from the official investigation into the hacking case dubbed "Celebgate," because most of the victims were celebrities whose nude photos were leaked to the Internet. However, the investigators were unable to secure evidence linking Collins to the actual leaks.

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Xbox Signals It's Ready to Rumble

Microsoft this week announced that it would support cross-network play between its latest gaming console and other platforms. Cross-network support would allow Xbox One players to engage in multiplayer gaming with friends and randoms on platforms such as Steam and the PlayStation Network. It will be up to developers to support cross-platform games, however, as Microsoft's studios build only Xbox One and Windows 10 games these days. The first theater of that modern warfare will take place on Psyonix's Rocket League.

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Digital Assistants Fail Abysmally in Crisis Situations

Personal digital assistants are of little benefit for people experiencing a serious personal crisis, such as sexual assault or thoughts of suicide, according to a study published Monday. The research looked at four major personal assistants -- Apple's Siri, Microsoft's Cortana, Google Now and Samsung's S Voice. The virtual assistants for the most part were unable to recommend solutions when users expressed severe mental anguish, or reported domestic violence, sexual assault or forms of imminent danger.

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Gadget Ogling: All-In-One Cooking, In-Car Movie Nights, and Rolling Robots

Tovala is going to change everything, apparently. It's a countertop cooking system that acts as oven, microwave, toaster, broiler and steamer. It appears to have all the convenience of ready-made meals, while providing healthier eating options than a typical TV dinner. While you can create your own dishes, Tovala offers its own meals created by professional chefs that are delivered fresh to your home in what could become an important revenue stream for the creators. When you scan a barcode on the meal container, Tovala will know exactly how to cook it.

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Remix OS Fills Android Desktop Void

The ability to run the Android OS as a fully functional desktop on PCs took a giant leap forward this month with a release that merges the Android-x86 Project with Jide Technology's Remix OS distribution. Android-x86 Project developer Chih-Wei Huang late last month announced on the project's website a partnership with Jide. He started the Android-x86 Project in 2009 and quickly realized that it had the potential to spread "the use of Android to as many of the common x86 platforms in the world as possible."

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Google's AlphaGo Thrashes Go Master

Google's AlphaGo on Tuesday rocked the worlds of Go and artificial intelligence when it beat 18-time international Go champion Lee Se-dol the final round of the Google DeepMind Challenge. Lee lost the first three rounds last week but came back and won the fourth game. One criticism of AI programs is that they have done well relying on logical inferences based on heuristics and memory, but they lack intuition and can't learn from their mistakes or derive new knowledge without human programming. AlphaGo's victory changes that.

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Artificial Intelligence Learns the Ways of Minecraft

Microsoft on Monday unveiled AIX, a platform that its researchers have been using to turn Minecraft into an artificial intelligence learning environment. Although Microsoft's 2014 decision to buy Minecraft raised some eyebrows -- the main criticism being that the game had run its course by then -- the company has been putting it to some innovative uses. The work with AIX, for example, can be likened to teaching an AI platform to survive on its instincts within an unfamiliar virtual world.

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USA Today to Experiment With Virtual Reality News Show

The USA Today Network last week announced VRtually There, a virtual reality news program that will evolve alongside the nascent VR sector. Set to launch this spring, VRtually There will take a network approach and will air an assortment of regularly scheduled programming, according to the Gannett-owned company. It will lean on the network's newsrooms, dotted across the U.S., to deliver original reporting for the VR platform, according to spokesperson Amber Allman.

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Devs Get to Noodle With Android N

Google last week announced a developer preview of Android N, the forthcoming release of its mobile operating system. The release comes early; it was widely expected to be announced in May at Google I/O 2016, the Google developers conference. Releasing a work-in-progress build earlier in the development cycle will give Google more time to incorporate feedback from developers and will let it hand off the final release to device makers in the summer, the company said.

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Philips Gets Biological With Home Lighting

Philips Lighting on Monday unveiled its Philips Hue white ambiance connected light bulbs. Designed to feature more natural light, the bulbs can gradually brighten in the morning to help users wake up naturally, while at night they can dim to help ease users to sleep. They also deliver a color temperature range -- from cool daylight to warm white -- that can be adjusted via a connected dimmer switch or through an app on a smartphone or tablet. The bulbs can be programmed with routines throughout the day, the company said.

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Is Donald Trump Batman?

There's an old rather funny movie called The Mouse That Roared. Basically, it is about a little no-name country that decides to go to war with the U.S. and lose, so that the U.S. will pay it reparations. Only it somehow wins, to everyone's surprise. It isn't clear whether Donald Trump declared war on Silicon Valley or the other way around -- it is hard to keep track of the folks Trump is at war with -- but the mismatch should be equally massive.

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Oculus Opens Social Doors for Gear VR

Oculus VR this week launched Oculus Social for Samsung's Gear VR viewer. Gear VR users can create profiles on Oculus Social and search out friends via real names or handles. The company, which has yet to ship its own virtual reality headset, also released two social games to encourage more friending on Oculus Social: Herobound: Gladiators and Social Trivia. In Herobound: Gladiators, players team up to take arms in a clash between demons and goblins. Social Trivia sits friends down at a virtual table and pits their wits against each other.

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Apple Lassos Attention With 'Loop You In' Tease

Apple on Thursday sent out media invitations to a March 21 event at its Cupertino, California, headquarters, with the cryptic teaser, "Let us loop you in." Speculation is rife that the company will unveil a new 4-inch iPhone called the "iPhone SE." A 9.7-inch iPad Air also is expected, as well as some new Apple Watch bands and minor hardware and software updates. The event initially was set for March 15 but then pushed back to March 21. That puts the event one day before a court hearing in Apple's legal battle with the FBI.

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Opera Desktop Browser Comes With Ad Blocking Baked In

Opera on Thursday announced that new version of its desktop browser will have ad blocking built in. Users can block ads in other browsers, but only through add-on programs called "extensions." With ad blocking built in, Opera's Web engine can perform the task better than extensions. "People care about speed in a Web browser, so when you're developing a browser you always have to think about speed," said Krystian Kolondra, senior vice president for global engineering at Opera.

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Home Alone? Now Nest Can Tell

Nest on Thursday announced two new features, Family Accounts and Home/Away Assist. Family Accounts would let up to 10 people access the Nest products in a connected home from their Android or iOS devices. That means an end to sharing logins and passwords, the company said. Users can be added or removed seamlessly from the Family Account. Home/Away Assist was designed to track the patterns of household members, utilizing learning algorithms and activity sensors that are built into products such as the Nest Learning Thermostat.

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Microsoft Sees the Light and Joins Eclipse

Microsoft on Tuesday announced it was joining the Eclipse Foundation as a solutions member. Membership will enable the company to collaborate more closely with the Eclipse community, which has more than 240 members. It also provides an outlet for delivering tools and services for all development teams. Microsoft will be able to improve its cloud services, SDKs and tools. "It is clear that Microsoft is a changed company and is now willing to engage developers in their existing communities," said the Eclipse Foundation's Mike Milinkovich.

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Facebook Exec's Brazilian Misadventure Signals Bigger Problem

The jailing last week of Facebook Regional Vice President Diego Dzoda in Brazil may have been the tip of an iceberg. Frustrated police made the arrest after Facebook failed to produce WhatsApp messages connected to a drug trafficking case. The incident is one of a growing heap of examples that highlight the difficulties law enforcement agencies face when trying to collect evidence in a digital world without borders. In international cases involving digital data, it's not uncommon for national laws to be at loggerheads.

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FBI Sets Off Snowden's BS Detector

The buzz surrounding the FBI's lawsuit to compel Apple to help it unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists increased on Tuesday, when NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden dismissed the agency's stance as "bullsh*t." He made the remark during a video conversation with Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice, and Dan Froomkin, Washington editor of The Intercept, at Common Cause's Blueprint for Democracy conference. The statement provoked some testy reactions.

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