Roxanne Briean

Apple Dot Com Redesign – A Sort-Of Face-Lift

August 7, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

The big A just got a face-lift, and their Apple dot com website that went live today is redesigned. There’s no Store tab present anymore, and the company removed the store.apple.com domain. This is a huge change for Apple’s website which is considered to be one of the biggest online retailers in the world.

The buying experience has been changed to keep up with the times, and now when you finish browsing for products, and decide to buy one, you’ll not be transported to a separate store, and both actions can be accomplished on the same page.

My personal experience with Apple’s store was not that great. It’s not the fact that I just hate keeping a ton of unnecessary tabs open, subsequently draining my RAM one cell at a time, but I just hate swapping, and going back and forth when there’s an easier way to do it.

More filters, and more sub-pages for landing pages make the buying experience more intuitive, thus making giving customers all the tools necessary to buy Apple product.

There’s a unified shopping cart now – welcome to 2015 Apple; and whatever you wish to put in there, will follow you wherever you go on the website, and a drop down sort-of menu will showcase what you’re spending money on.

After you’re set on what to buy from Apple, a single page appears where you can select all your traditional choices, and if you want to extend the warranty or not.

Apple dot com is witnessing 1 billion users traffic each year, from 40 different countries across the globe.

Apple’s website, according to Alexa.com, is in the top 50 most visited websites in the world, and its traffic rankings put it at number 34 in the US. Here’s some food for thought. The majority of users that visit Apple dot come are female, and the browsing location is school related.

It’s unsure at the moment if the whole website is going to be temporarily taken down whenever a new product will hit stores, just like they did with their Store page every single time a new device, or gadget was about to be launched.

What we do know is that the new redesigned Apple dot com was launched without a hitch today, and it hasn’t experienced a single second of down time.

But why redesign the store? To fit the ever growing mobile platform of course. Sure, switching to the Store app, and back to the original page isn’t that hideous on desktop, but when you’re on mobile, it can get a little bit tricky.

Image Source: 1

New Do Not Track Policy Explained by Disconnect CEO

August 5, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

The present internet medium is riddled with ads – some prove to be quite useful, while others are simply outrageous, and stupid. Not only do ads scrupulously target us, but websites tend to understand something different when it comes down to the Do Not Track Policy.

The EFF, which translates to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has just released a tougher Do Not Track Policy to ensure users across the world that websites that dwell in shady strategies will get what’s coming to them.

The advertising industry, which one may think is run by the Devil himself, usually understands the Do Not Track Policy as a Do Not Target, with ads of course. They still keep your data tightly wrapped in their servers, but they just don’t use it.

Casey Oppenheim, who is one of the co-founders of the EFF, and who also worked on this brand new policy, notes that publishers are taking advantage of this loophole, and this must stop.

Oppenheim notes in the new EFF policy that once an user opts-out of the tracking system, websites should abide by his wishes, stop collecting unique fingerprints, cookies, logs which contain browser information, and his, or hers, IP address for no more than 10 days!

An exception to the rule might be when the law requires the data to be transmitted, or when a transaction is required – either by the user, or the company which involves the user in case.

Medium is one of the initial partners that jumped on the bandwagon along with, go figure, AdBlock, the all-about-privacy search engine DuckDuckGo, and one of the top analytics company in the world Mixpanel.

With time, Oppenheim wishes that more companies will abide by their new Do Not Track Policy, thus ensuring users that surf their websites that they are privacy-friendly, and they don’t store their data for their own hidden agenda.

The big question that Oppenheim rises, and he also answers, is if the behemoths of the industry, Google, and Facebook, will abide by this new policy, and if they will try to set it as a standard of quality. Oppenheim says yes, they will, considering the fact that people who use ad blocking services are on the rise, but the growth isn’t seen in US territory, only abroad.

Logically, Oppenheim will be working closely with his team at Disconnect to add the standard into their very own ad blocking app. An app that will reward publishers who abide by this policy by letting their adds roam easily to their targets.

Advertisers Bleeding Money Because Of Mobile Ad Fraud

July 28, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

According to a new study about ad fraud, as much as 15% of mobile apps allegedly load stealth ads. The ads can consume as much as 2 gb of connection data daily by downloading images and videos that are never viewed. This translates into advertisers losing as much as 1 billions dollars in 2015 only.

The 10 day study revealed how this hijacking method will load hidden ads in the blink of an eye, going as far as to emulate human behavior. Every smartphone owner could be the victim of ad fraud with them ever suspecting anything is wrong.

With the mobile market rapidly developing and growing into a profitable scene for advertisement, ad fraud didn’t delay to make its appearance. Additionally, the ever more ingenious fraud strategies are not only harmful for the advertising moguls, but they can also affect the consumer segment.

Exactly what numbers are we looking at? The study claims that 1% of US devices run fake ads, while in Europe and Asia as much as 2-3% of devices are similarly hijacked. How does this impact regular consumers? If you were wondering where your data and battery life were going, this study might answer your questions. The malicious apps can end up downloading 1-2 gb daily, including text, videos and pictures.

While the invisible ads pop up on all major mobile operating systems, it would appear Android is taking the biggest hit with a fraud risk proportion of 14.8%, followed by Apple with 11.7% and Windows, with 8.8%.

A typical legitimate app will refresh every 30-120 seconds, unlike the illegitimate ones which will deliver as many as 20 ads per minute. The situation looks disconcerting, especially when we have a look at some other things the apps can do: they can prevent your device from going into sleep mode, they can delete or modify your smartphone’s memory and they can even track your location.

So what can the average consumer do to take shelter from the malicious apps? One suggestion would be to scan app reviews and keep an eye out for excessive data usage. Another red flag could be the power usage, since these two could hint at fraud. One more piece of advice is to pull the plug on some apps’ cell data access to make sure you stay on the safe side of the fence.

While the study points the finger mostly at small, unknown app publishers, the bigger picture at hand is online and privacy safety. The study raises many questions and leaves the public demanding answers and solutions.

Image sources 1, 2, 3

Karbonn Sparkle V Review – An Android One Smartphone

July 27, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

The Karbonn Sparkle V runs on pure Android, but is it worth the $200 price-tag? It’s one budget smartphone that doesn’t try to resemble any flagship device that is well established on the market, and neither does it try to say it’s the best one. The Karbonn Sparkle V doesn’t excel in any way, but this doesn’t mean it won’t satisfy your web surfing needs. Just don’t use it as your main tool of taking photos, because it seriously shouldn’t be considered capable of taking pictures.

Karbonn Sparkle V Review

What is the Karbonn Sparkle V? What are the Karbonn Sparkle V specs?

The Karbonn Sparkle V, which immediately makes me think of Power Puff Girls, is Google’s accomplice in bringing pure Android to the masses. It has been launched under Google’s Android One program.

It’s not that slim for a 4.5-inch device. For comparison, Apple’s flag-ship smartphone iPhone 6 is way smaller. This isn’t to say that the Karbonn Sparkle V is humongous. It’s just kinda too big for a 4.5-inch device.

The Sparkle’s key features, and specs:

Dual-Sim Card support
Android 4.4 Kitkat
5 megapixel main camera

There isn’t much to go about, key features wise, because it lacks them completely. It’s equipped with borderline mediocre components, but somehow, it’s more than acceptable.

Karbonn Sparkle V Price: $200

Karbonn Sparkle V

Design Talk

Firstly I just want to put it out there that I don’t think that the Karbonn Sparkle V deserves the pure Android status. I’m no elitist, and I do realize that Google’s OS is designed for emerging markets, but it seriously doesn’t stand a chance in this dog eat dog smartphone world.

And with that out of my system, we can carry out.

The Sparkle V doesn’t visually stun you, and it just loses itself swimming in the vast ocean of budget-smartphones. It looks exactly like any other cheap smartphone, so if you’re going for the wow factor, for the let-me-shock-you with how beautiful my device is, you’re out of luck.

It’s built entirely out of plastic, and the back black matte, the dark blue plate, is a grease magnet. If you’re like me, and sweat a lot during the Summer – and not limited to it – then your phone will be home to your fingerprints, and dirt. Dirt? From where? I don’t exactly know. You see, I tested the Karbonn Sparkle V for a month – that’s how I usually run all of my tests – and at the end of the trial period, the back and the smartphones screen screamed Wash Me.

Or better yet, throw me away, and get a new one. I keed, I keed.

The plate on the back of the device is removable, and so it’s the smartphone’s battery. It’s equipped with a microSD card slot, and a Dual-Sim slot. I’m quite loving these options for Dual-Sim. Unfortunately for us, big telecom jerks tend to tax us when we get out of the state, or simply out of the country.

Also, I use a cheap unlimited data plan sim for my internet cravings – no minutes, no messages, zero, zip, zilch, nada! And another one for talking, and texting. It’s way cheaper this way, believe-you me!

Regulars travelers might be starting to like the Karbonn Sparkle V.

The microSD card’s appearance is a rarity on cheap, budget phones, so having it comes like a divine gift. Actually, the Sparkle V has to have a microSD card slot, or people would not buy it. The smartphone has only 4GB of storage space, and only about 2 of them are usable. That’s super sucky, and you don’t have any room for storing photos, music, or even games.

A 32 gig microSD card usually costs $25 to $35 bucks, and I highly recommend you invest in one. Even though, your photos won’t be showing-off worthy.

One thing that I found pretty great with Sparkle over here is the fact that I didn’t even feel it in my pocket. I said before that it isn’t as slim as a 4.5-inch device should be, but it still does, shockingly, well in this department. It weighs just about 107g, and measuring 9.2mm thickness, you’ll be afraid of loosing it in your pants.

The volume rocker, and the standby button sit nicely together on the right edge, the micro USB charging port is in its usually found place, that is at the bottom, and the 3.5 mm head phone jack resides close to it.

Overall, the build-quality, although not exceptional, is pretty great. Even though it’s a grease, and fingerprint magnet, it feels comfortable in your hand. Out of pure clumsiness, I dropped the Karbonn Sparkle V, and to my surprise, it didn’t chip.

Karbonn Sparkle V

Screen Talk

As we already know, the Karbonn has a 4.5-inch IPS LCD screen. It outputs a 480 x 854 resolution with 218ppi pixel density. Not much for $200, considering that you have to buy a microSD card, it racks up to $250 or so. For this kind of money, you could be looking at the Kazam Tornado 455L, which has a bigger screen, and a better resolution.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not bad, it’s actually pretty decent if you plan on using it to surf the web, watch YouTube clips, or play a game from time to time, but I would buy something else if I were you.

Videos have quite a punch, and colors seem full of life, vivid, and refreshing. There are some fuzzy corners if you pay close attention to app icons, and such, but nothing too noticeable – unless you go looking for issues.

Brightness is decent, but you won’t want to crank the knob to the max, because battery life will suffer, greatly. More on that later on.

Karbonn Sparkle V

Software Talk

It’s a pure Android smartphone, meaning that it doesn’t come with any bloatware apps – something I despise immensely. I just hate that Samsung, and Sony push so many crapware into their systems, and I have to cleanse it. I get annoyed even more when I find out that I can’t delete some of the apps they pre-installed, just because the phone manufacturer has some sort of partnership with the app-maker.

The Karbonn Sparkle V runs Android 4.4 Kitkat, and it limits itself to just that. Although, the phone-maker has promised that their device will be able to run Android 5.0 Lollipop, there’s no news of it seeing the light of day. It has a release date of at some point in the future. Yay!

Comparison with Moto G

The pros of having a Karbonn Sparkle V Android One smartphone is that your device will be amongst the first to receive new software – if, and when, it’s eligible for an update.

All of Google’s stock apps come pre-installed – including Google Chrome, and Google Keep. If you swipe left, you can launch Google Now, and prompting the notification panel is just a downward swipe away. It fits the norm.

There are a few apps that you’ll see available only for Sparkle like OLX, Snapdeal, and Saavn which is a music service.

One cool feature that Android One phones are equipped with is the ability to download YouTube clips for offline use, but unfortunately for the Sparkle, it isn’t present. It’s a little bit peculiar that it’s missing.

Karbonn Sparkle V

Performance Talk

Karbonn’s smartphone ain’t the best one performance wise, but it packs quite a punch. It’s equipped with a quad-core Mediatek MT6582 processor, at 1.3GHz, with an ARM Cortex-A7. The Mali 400MP2 GPU takes care of your gaming needs.

I’ve come to realize that going bonkers over the fact that it has four cores is just plain foolish. The way the dev implements those cores, and how they work with the whole system matters the most.

I’ve found the Sparkle to be as good as, if not better than, the Moto G, but not by much.

You won’t have any problems surfing the web for articles, reading Facebook, watching YouTube clips, and even gaming. But I’ve seen better at this price range. It puts in a good performance nevertheless.

You’ll notice some lag on occasion, but nothing a quick restart won’t fix.

Karbonn Sparkle V

Camera Talk

The camera unit is where cheap budget phones tend to make sacrifices, and go figure, the Karbonn doesn’t shy away. If you’re going to buy this smartphone, keep in mind that you’ll be acquiring a modest-setup – that’s an overstatement to be honest.

Yes, 5 measly megapixels aren’t enough for this day and age, more so considering the fact that it’s the primary camera. The LED flash, and autofocus don’t shine one bit, and they are the most disappointing out of the bunch.

Day time sample picture

The secondary 2 megapixel camera which can be used for taking selfies, and also 720p video is a nice addition, but keep in mind that it’s not that great.

Sure, it’s okay’ish for Facebook, and Instagram, but if you plan on using it for something else, then no way Jose.

But before you even think of taking photos, you need to buy a microSD card, and install it on your phone. Those 4 GB that the smartphone is equipped with, aren’t use for capturing images. Why? Because pictures must be saved on an external storage device – like a microSD card.

Day time sample picture

If you try to take a picture without a microSD card installed, a message will be prompted on the screen telling you to buy one.

That’s another deal-breaker.

Taking photos can be done from the pre-installed Google Photos app – which you can use to synch photos to the cloud. And in camera picture app you can choose modes, and if Flash is enabled, or not.

Google’s camera app features only the basic things, and it’s easy to use, and intuitive. Although, at first, it may seem a little bit hard to understand where you can select modes, and such. Just tap the small camera settings icon in the top corner.

Day time sample picture

Like I said before, don’t expect anything great to come out of it. Sure, it’s more than enough for Facebook, Twitter, and even Instagram, but that’s about it. Why? Because pictures seem to be packed with a ton of noise, even in exceptional light conditions.

It has a slow shutter speed, which tells you that pictures will tend to look out of focus from time, to time. But that’s not the lackluster thing about it. Pictures look bland. That’s the best way I can put it. No colors that punch you in the face with their warm, or cold feeling. No sharp images that portray exactly that awesome architecture the building has.

Night time sample picture

You need to keep your Sparkle V steady at all times when taking a picture, because you won’t find that top-notch image stabilization you’re probably used to in more expensive smartphones. This tends to be a huge problem when taking photos during night time. Pictures can look overexposed, and grainy.

You can take 1080p vids with the rear-facing camera, and 720p with the front one. But, in my experience with the Karbonn Sparkle V, I wouldn’t recommend it. Clips are just a huge mess of pixels running on your screen. It’s not 1080, no matter how hard the company tries to say so.

Karbonn Sparkle V

Battery Life Talk

It has a 1700mAh battery, which is removable, and it lasts about 7, to 8 hours, depending how much you check Facebook. It’s not that much, and I’ve seen it go below the 7 hour mark.

Bottom line is, it won’t last you throughout the day if you’re checking Facebook, or surfing the web constantly. Carry a charger with you at all times.

The 720p video test which I ran, lasted just about 5 hours and 40’ish minutes.

Karbonn Sparkle V

Sound, Call Quality Talk

While I do not recommend listening to music out loud, and even watching YouTube clips without headphones – mainly because it’s a douchey thing to do – sound quality is really great. You can hear all the high sounds without adjust your phone, but it has some problems with the bass. It’s a forgivable issue. Not even high-end smartphones can output great bass quality through their speakers.

Call quality is also great. No interruptions, no losing signal, and no robot sounds talking in your place.

In this area, the Karbonn Sparkle V does its job tremendously well.

Karbonn Sparkle V Verdict

Karbonn Sparkle V – Verdict

Should I buy the Karbon Sparkle V?

If you don’t mind the horrible little camera, and the fact that you need to buy an additional microSD card, then yes. I think it’s one great budget smartphone in Google’s Android One program.

Of course, you can keep looking for other $200 smartphones that may fit your needs perfectly, but in my book, I choose you Pikachu. No, wait. I choose you Karbon Sparkle V.

Image Source: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21

Uber To Deliver The New Mi Note by Xiaomi

July 24, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

The famous taxi service provider Uber has just teamed up with Xiaomi for delivering their latest smartphone model, the new Mi Note, to customers. What can you expect from this? You won’t receive your order at your door on the same day, but within minutes.

If you’re based in Singapore or Malaysia and you use the Uber app for ordering taxis, in a few days you’ll notice a new feature at the bottom of your smartphone screen. You’ll have the possibility to purchase the new Mi Note following the same steps that you would for ordering an Uber. Pick “Xiaomi” with the slider in your app, request the smartphone and presto! It will be delivered to you through an Uber taxi.

The payment mirrors the exact process used by Uber. Your credit or debit card will be charged as soon as you will place your order. All you have to do is wait a few minutes until your doorbell rings and you get the new Mi Note.

Xiaomi’s marketing strategy is, of course, merely a stunt meant to attract more business and to make the brand as known as possible. However, the quirky idea caught on and the team is even thinking of expanding to new territories. Xiaomi has just launched new products in Asia and Brazil and they are even paving their way to a US release. According to Xiaomi’s VP, Hugo Bara, they are now working on patents for protecting their design and features:

“if it’s a patent and it’s an essential patent then, of course, it needs to be licensed. Secondly, we’re building our own portfolio of patents, for defensive purposes”

Starting July 27th you’ll be able to acquire the new Mi Note for just a little under 400$. Let’s take a look at Xiaomi’s latest release. Mi Note sports a 5.7 inch screen with a 1920 x 1080 pixel display and 3 GB of RAM.

After you’ve placed your order with your Uber app, you can follow the taxi as it makes its way to you to deliver the phone. The exclusive Uber delivery will take place a day before the new Mi Note smartphone will hit the shelves in the official stores, so if you live in Singapore or Malaysia you’ll get the privilege of testing out the smartphone before anyone else.

Uber and Xiaomi’s collaboration is momentarily short timed, but there have been rumors of a long term partnership. The mutually beneficial collaboration is bound to emphasize the taxi service’s speed and to raise some hype around the launch of the new Mi Note.

Image sources: 1, 2, 3

Dropbox Acquires Clementine, Adds More Muscle

July 23, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

Dropbox HQ

Dropbox acquires Clementine – a company based on enterprise communication services.

An official post on Clementine’s website notes that the deal has went through, and the company that was started in 2014, is now part of the Dropbox family. Note that the company, Clementine, will shut down, and all of their assets, and teams are going to be taken under Dropbox’s wing.

Their area of expertise doesn’t quite fit what Dropbox does for a living. You see, Clementine is a company that helps enterprises set a reliable internal communications network – such as conference calls, and other chat services, which aren’t connected to a personal phone number.

While this may be something new that the California-based company wants to tackle, they’ve been working with enterprises for a couple of years now. The company boasts that, at the current moment, they are working with over 100,000 companies, offering full support, and all of the features their service provides.

The news that Dropbox acquires Clementine isn’t really news, to be honest. It was expected of the company to find other areas to sneak into. The cloud storage service is under tight grip by Amazon, and Google, with Microsoft, and Apple coming in strong from behind. Dropbox is there, but their presence doesn’t compare with that of the big G, for example.

” We’re now excited to announce the next stage of our journey — we’re joining Dropbox. Our mission and passion for workplace collaboration remains the same. Our stage will grow dramatically as Dropbox builds on our technology to engage with its over 400 million users and 100,000 businesses.”, notes a spokesperson for the company.

The company boasts that it has 400 million users, and a question arises. How many of them are unique? I, for one, have three Dropbox accounts, and four Google accounts for Google Drive. I want to keep my information spread on different cloud storage providers, and 2 GB just isn’t enough.

Dropbox 400 million users, company states.

Clementine’s free app features will remain in place for their current user-base until the 31st of August, and after that it’s bye bye.

T.J. Keitt, senior analyst with Forrester notes that Dropbox has realized that the enterprise medium requires more variety, and companies that offer this kind of services will lead to a better workflow i.e bigger profits means more money.

Dropbox wants to be a player in the enterprise collaboration space, and I think they believe that they need to do more than synchronize files across devices. Given what Clementine was, we can expect that to be a highly integrated experience that may include voice services in addition to text messaging. It will be very interesting to see what the combined Dropbox and Clementine teams cook up.

Adding more options to choose from makes a lot of sense, and the fact that Dropbox acquires Clementine starts to shape up quite nicely – business will just love this.

Image Source: 1, 2, 3,

New Audi R8, and R8 Plus Turbocharged Models

July 18, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

The new Audi R8, and R8 Plus models from the German manufacturer are just simply superb – as we are accustomed, they are quite petite, but pack in a hell of a punch.

Audi’s top of the line supercars are dubbed Audi R8 V10 Plus, and they come with enough power to compete with other road behemoths in a sprint race.

Although they have enough power to compete with the already released Mercedes-AMG, Porsche, and Nissan turbocharged supercars, they fall a little bit behind, because the Audi R8 Plus model comes packed with just 610 horse-power, and it can reach 60 miles per hour in 3.2 seconds.

“ It is inevitable that we (Audi) will go to a turbocharged motor for it (R8) at some point. It doesn’t mean we are not going to do a turbo, but naturally aspirated is here to stay as well.” said Urlich Hackenberg, Chief of Volkswagen’s Research and Development, during last week’s Portugal event.

Both Audi R8 models reach a top speed of 200mph, with the R8 plus model reaching 205mph – there isn’t much of a difference between them, but drivers have witnessed the R8 plus model reaching tops speeds faster. Still, it’s barely noticeable.

While the new Audi R8 is racetrack ready, it’s also viable for everyday life.

The Audi R8 will go on sale next Spring in the United States.

The Audi R8 has been born, and molded by Le Mans. In 2000, when Audi first competed with their prototype, at that time, of an R8, it won the 24 hour race. It followed a 2008 release, and it suddenly became Audi’s first, and popular, supercar.

The German manufacturers’ next generation R8 has been developed using their MSS technology – which is short for Modular Sportscar System, the company’s aluminium spaceframe.

The R8 is build from up to 80 percent more aluminium, because it has MSS, and the carbon fiber also equipped makes it sturdy, and reliable. Rest assured, if you ever get into an accident, you won’t be squashed like a bug on a windshield.

The German manufacturer boasts that they have managed to improve their 5.2-liter V-10 engine, making it less of a fuel hog – 13 percent increase in fuel economy.

Audi’s R8 direct competitors are Huracán and McLaren 650S – also viable for driving like a normal human being on the street, and not only on racetracks.

Unfortunately, Audi will use their own designed clutch, which is expensive as hell. The S Tronic dual-clutch gearbox, which Audi notes that is modern, and faster than anything else on the market, costs about $9,100. Add that to the base price of the Audi R8, and your bank account might just feel like it has been hit by the wrath of a thousand suns.

Image Source: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Google Drive Ups Its Security Features

July 15, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

Google Drive has upped its security features – now, you can rest assured that nobody will be able to download, share, or simply copy your personal information.

Google Drive is one of the most used cloud storage services – along with DropBox, and Amazon’s service – and reassuring its user-base that their personal information is safe and sound can cement the big G’s position in the industry.

The company has released an Information Rights Management tool that can be accessed from Google Drive.

What does this new Information Rights Management mean? Well, basically, you can remove the ability to download, copy, print, and even share for certain files on your Drive – of course, you can choose this option to be widely available for the entirety of your information.

Developers have the possibility of implementing this option in their apps with an API.

After you choose to disable the feature that allow others to copy, download, and etc. your personal info, you’ll receive a notification that entails that your export options have been disabled in the File Menu.

Of course, if someone wants to steal your information, he eventually will – given the means, tools, and skill necessary. But we always welcome more layers of security, even though they might give users a fake state of being safe.

The feature has rolled out today, but it’s only available for Web users. Mobile users will probably have to wait a little bit longer for it to be implemented – it will most definitely come to mobile, but at the current moment, we don’t know when.

In 2014, a work-around was found that let users, who had an url link to a Google Drive account folder, to wreak havoc. Google fixed it quite quickly, but who’s there to say that it can’t happen again in a different form?

Google is preparing for the future. Adding more layers of security can garner a lot of popularity, and shift some users from its direct competitors to join their service.

Are you more keen on using Google Drive now? Or are you going to stick with your current cloud storage service provider? Tell us in the comments section below!

Image Source: 1, 2, 3

Apple’s Issues With Storage May Be A Thing Of The Past

June 30, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

Apple’s issues with storage may be a thing of the past, thanks to Samsung.

9to5Mac cites as source KoreanTimes, which state that Apple is in negotiations with Samsung – they want the South-Korean company to build them a crucial component for their new iPhone product line. Rumours have it that Apple wants to ditch Toshiba, SK hynix and SanDisk, and go with Samsung as their only storage component manufacturer.

Their iPhone 6, and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones come with a standard 16 GB storage, and some consider this to be way too small for what you can do with a device in 2015. By the time the new iPhone comes out, 16 GB of storage may not be enough for what the average Joe needs. More so, operating systems may increase in size in the near future.

Apple wants to stay ahead of problems that might arise in the (near)future.

We already know that Samsung is in Apple’s good grace, because they will reprise their role as chip makers for the California-based company, but their relationship might turn another leaf.

Apple’s standard iPhone 6 model comes with a built-in storage of 16 GB – users can choose upwards to 32 GB, 64 GB, and 128 GB.

Apple might scratch off completely the 16 GB model, thus making Apple aficionados pay more buck for a standard model – which rumours have it will stand at 32 GB.

In 2014, photo app Ice Cream reports that iPhone 6 16 GB users run out of storage space too often. Apple is listening to its community, and considers that – ” The belief is more and more as we use iCloud services for documents and our photos and videos and music, that perhaps the most price-conscious customers are able to live in an environment where they don’t need gobs of local storage because these services are lightening the load. “ says Phil Schiller, the company’s head of marketing.

IceCream / Ondevice Research 2014

If the rumours are true, Apple is shifting its focus on storage space for its new iPhone device, and they consider this a big deal, even though they seriously don’t show it. Apple is trying to make iCloud services popular, but it’s aware of the fact that not everyone is keen on jumping on the bandwagon which is currently dominated by Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.

Also, as a side note, Apple is considering that the iPhone 5C’s 8 GB of storage space is incredibly small, and it might interrupt its line pretty soon – only for it to come out with 16 GBs, and even 32 GBs.

Apple will most likely announce something official this Fall, as the company is known not to respond to rumours.

What do you think? Good, or bad decision on Apple’s side? Would you pay more for a standard model that has double the storage space that the current iPhone 6 has?

Image Source: 1, 2, 3

Samsung’s Safety Trucks Might Just Save a Ton of Lives

June 24, 2015 By Roxanne Briean Leave a Comment

In Argentina, one person is killed every hour in traffic accidents. The main cause is people overtaking without assuring themselves if it’s safe to do so. Samsung’s Safety Trucks might be a campaign stunt to bolster their popularity, but I seriously don’t care. They’re doing a great job, and this might actually save lives on the long run!

We all know how annoying it is to be stuck behind a long-hauler – some trucks drive slow as hell, and they are kinda’ hard to overtake. But this doesn’t mean that you should try to do so without checking if it’s safe first. Samsung builds a huge screen on the back of their trucks, and the camera in the front streams a live feed in order for the driver behind to see what’s happening on the road – thus the dubbing Safety Trucks.

It’s far more convenient to just patiently wait until oncoming traffic isn’t oncoming anymore, so you can pass without accelerating like crazy because there’s a Prius just in front of you.

Samsung doesn’t half-ass things, and their wireless camera can capture night-time footage without distorting too much of the video, and the video wall made out of four exterior monitors doesn’t gauge your eyes out by being way too bright.

Samsung’s Safety Trucks might also prevent accidents caused by braking all of a sudden due to animals jumping in front of a vehicle – it happens way more often than you think.

Now, this is just but prototype, it’s not operational at the moment, but Samsung just wants to give a shout out to the world – ” Here, I made this.”. Hopefully, it’s going to be picked up on a world-wide scale, thus combating, and lowering the rate of accidents caused by failing to overtake properly.

Samsung just needs to perform a lot more tests to ensure that their tech works fine and dandy, and they need permits for their Safety Trucks. Also, there’s a thing called national protocols that their trucks must comply with.

The South-Korean giant might as well implement this on all the trucks they have – they’ll definitely get golden stars in my book.

Here’s the official video by Samsung. Take a look, it’s heart-wrenching, and inspiring.

Image Source: 1, 2, 3

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